GIFT  OF 

SEELEY  W.  MUDD 

and 

GEORGE  I.  COCHRAN     MEYER  ELSASSER 

DR.  JOHN  R.  HAYNES    WILLIAM  L.  HONNOLD 

JAMES  R.  MARTIN         MRS.  JOSEPH  F.  SARTORI 

to  the 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

SOUTHERN  BRANCH 


HISTORY   OF   CIVILIZATION 


FIFTH    CENTURY. 


i  t  2  1      9 


,''','  <>, 


HISTORY  OF  CIVILIZATION 


FIFTH    CENTURY. 


TRANSLATED    BY   PERMISSION    FROM    THE    FRENCH    OF 

A.   FRÉDÊEIC   OZANAM, 

LATE     PROFESSOR    OF    FOREIGN    LITERATURE    TO    THE    FACULTY    OF    LETTERS 
AT    PARIS. 


ASHLEY    C.     GLYN,     B.A., 

OF    THE    INNER   TEMPLE,    BARRISTER-AT-LAW. 


IN   TWO   VOLUMES. 
VOL.    I. 


LONDON: 
WM.    H.   ALLEN    &    CO.,    13,    WATERLOO    PLACE, 

PALL    MALL,    S.W. 
1868. 


r\   * 


'.  0  '1 


LONDON  : 

PRINTED      BY      WOODFALI.     AND      KINDER, 

MILFORD   LANE,    STRAND,   W.C. 


C  13 
^  TRANSLATOR'S    PREFACE. 

r 

r 


CQ 


The   following  version   in   English,  of    an   historical 

work  which  is  well  known  and   valued   in  France,  is 

offered  to  a  public  which  has  welcomed   the   kindred 

writings   of  the   Comte   de   Montalembert.     It  treats 

of  a  period  which  was  the  turning  point  in  the  history 

of  Western  civilization,  and  although  the  standpoint  of 

W  the  author  may  to  a  certain  extent  influence  the  method 

H  of  treatment,  and  cause  many  in  this  country  to  take 

exception  to  details,  yet  it  is  submitted  that  all  will 

^  agree  to  its  main  argument,  the  position  of  the  Chris- 

^  tian  Church  as  the  great — the  only  civilizing  force  that 

(il    survived  the  revolution  which  left  the  prostrate  Empire 

face  to  face  with  the  invading  hordes.     This  fact,  which 

is  insisted  on  by  the  followers  of  Comte,  will  in  these 

days  surely  not  be  controverted  by  any  of  those  whose 

thought  is  governed  by  Christianity. 

A  few  words  may  be  said  as  to  the  career  of  the 
author,  Frédéric  Ozanam,  whose  name  has  not  yet 
become  widely  known  in  this  country.  He  was  born 
August  23rd,  1813,  at  Milan,  where  his  father,  who  had 
fallen  into  poverty,  was  residing  and  studying  medicine. 
His  mother,  whose  maiden  name  had  been  Marie 
Nantas,  was  daughter  to  a  rich  Lyonnese  merchant. 


VI  TEANSLATOR  s   PREFACE. 

and  it  was  to  that  city  that  his  parents  returned  in 
1816.  The  father  obtained  there  a  considerable  repu- 
tation as  a  doctor,  and  died  from  the  effects  of  an 
accident  in  1837.  His  son  pursued  his  studies  at 
Paris  with  great  success,  and  was  destined  for  the  Bar. 
He  took  a  prominent  place  in  the  thoughtful  and 
religious  party  among  the  students,  and  his  published 
letters  show  how  he  became  identified  with  the  move- 
ment set  on  foot  by  Lacordaire  and  others.  He  was 
especially  distinguished,  however,  by  the  foundation  of 
an  association  of  benevolence,  called  the  Society  of  St. 
Vincent  of  Paul,  which  from  its  small  beginnings  in 
Paris  spread  over  France,  and  has  at  the  present  time  its 
conferences,  composed  of  laymen,  in  all  the  larger  towns 
of  Europe.  M.  Ozanam  showed,  even  during  his  student 
life,  a  leaning  towards  literary  pursuits,  and  a  distaste  for 
the  profession  of  the  Bar,  to  which  he  was  destined  ;  but 
he  joined  the  Bar  of  Lyons,  obtained  some  success 
as  an  advocate,  and  was  chosen  in  1839  as  the  first 
occupant  of  the  professorial  chair  of  Commercial  Law 
which  had  just  been  established  in  that  city.  The 
courses  of  lectures  given  by  him  were  well  attended, 
the  lectures  themselves  were  eloquent  and  learned,  and 
M.  Ozanam  seems  to  have  preferred  inculcating  the 
science  of  jurisprudence  to  practising  in  the  Courts. 
But  in  the  course  of  the  following  year,  1840,  he 
obtained  an  appointment  which  was  still  more  suitable 
to  his  talent,  the  Professorship  of  Foreign  Literature 
at  Paris,  and  which  gave  him  a  perfect  opportunity  for 
the  cultivation  of  his  favourite  pursuit,  the  philosophy 
of  history.  Shortly  after  his  appointment,  M.  Ozanam 
married,  and  the  remaining  years  of  his  life  were  spent 
in  the  duties  of  his  calling;  in  travelling  partly  for 


TEANSLATOR  S    PREFACE.  Vil 

the  sake  of  health  and  pleasure,  partly  to  gain  informa- 
tion which  might  he  woven  into  his  lectures;  and  in 
visits  to  his  many  friends,  chiefly  those  who  had  taken 
an  active  part  with  him  in  upholding  the  interests  of  reli- 
gion in  France.  He  never  entered  upon  active  political 
life,  though  he  ofiiered  himself  upon  a  requisition  of 
his  fellow-townsmen  as  representative  of  Lyons  in  the 
National  Assemhly  of  1848.  In  politics  M.  Ozanam 
was  a  decided  Liberal,  in  religion  a  fervent  Catholic. 
His  letters  show  a  great  dislike  of  any  alliance  between 
the  Church  and  Absolutism,  and  a  conviction  that  re- 
ligion and  an  enlightened  democracy  might  flourish 
together.  He  wrote  in  the  "Correspondant  "  which  em- 
bodied the  newer  ideas,  and  was  frequently  animadverted 
upon  by  the  "  Univers,"  which  represented  the  more 
conservative  party  in  Church  and  State.  His  more  im- 
portant works  were  developed  from  lectures  delivered  at 
the  Sorbonne  :  and  his  scheme  was  to  embrace  the  his- 
tory of  civilization  from  the  fall  of  the  Roman  Emj)ire  to 
the  time  of  Dante.  But  failing  health,  although  much 
was  completed,  did  not  allow  him  entirely  to  achieve 
the  great  object  which  he  had  originally  conceived 
when  a  mere  boy  ;  and  the  touching  words  in  which  he 
expressed  his  resignation  to  an  early  death,  when  his 
already  brilliant  life  promised  an  increase  of  success, 
and  his  cup  of  domestic  happiness  was  entirely  full, 
may  be  found  among  his  published  writings.  M. 
Ozanam  seems  to  have  continued  his  literary  labours 
as  long  as  rapidly  increasing  weakness  would  permit, 
but  after  a  stay  in  Italy,  which  did  not  avail  to  restore 
his  broken  health,  he  reached  his  native  country  only 
to  die,  September  8th,  1853,  in  the  fortieth  year  of 
his  age,  and  the  heyday  of  a  bright  and  useful  career. 


Vlll  TRANSLATOR  s    PREFACE. 

He  was  lamented  by  troops  of  friends,  old  and  young, 
rich  and  poor — the  latter  indeed  being  under  especial 
obligations  to  his  memory.  His  friend  M.  Ampère  be- 
came his  literary  executor,  and  undertook  the  task  of 
giving  his  complete  works  to  the  public,  for  which  end 
a  subscription  was  quicldy  raised  amongst  those  who 
had  known  and  respected  him  at  Lyons  and  elsewhere. 
From  the  lectures  which  he  had  completed  and  revised, 
from  reports  of  others,  and  his  own  manuscript  notes, 
an  edition  of  his  complete  works  was  formed  in  nine 
volumes,  comprising  La  Civilization  au  Cinquième 
Sù'cle,  Etudes  Germaniques,  Les  Poètes  Franciscains, 
Dante  et  la  Philosophie  Catholique  au  Treizième  Siècle, 
and  Mélanges,  to  which  were  added  two  volumes  of  his 
letters. 

The  work  which  has  now  been  translated  forms  the 
first  two  volumes  of  the  above  series,  and  was  intended 
by  the  author  as  the  opening  of  the  grand  historical 
treatise  which  he  had  designed.  But  it  is  also  com- 
plete in  itself,  and  seems  well  worthy  of  an  introduc- 
tion into  England.  As  it  was  delivered  originally  in 
the  shape  of  lectures,  and  preserves  that  form  in  the 
French  edition,  it  has  been  necessary,  in  order  to  pre- 
serve the  continuity  of  the  historical  narrative,  to  alter 
the  construction  occasionally,  and  to  pass  over  a  sen- 
tence here  and  there,  which  refers  solely  to  the  audience 
of  students  to  which"  the  lectures  were  originally  ad- 
dressed. The  last  chapter  but  one  being  based  upon  a 
lecture  which  the  author  had  never  revised,  and  which 
stands  in  the  French  in  the  shape  of  rough  notes,  has 
been  rendered  into  connected  English,  regard  being  had 
to  the  general  style  of  the  completed  lectures.  With 
these  exceptions  the  original  form  of  the  treatise  has. 


TRANSLATORS    PREFACE.  IX 

as  far  as  was  compatible  witli  the  exigencies  of  our 
idiom,  been  steadily  maintained,  and  every  idea  has,  in 
accordance  with  the  accepted  canons  of  translation,  been 
scrupulously  preserved.  But  the  translator  is  fully 
conscious  of  the  defects  of  his  work,  and  only  trusts 
that  some  portion  of  the  beauty  and  earnest  eloquence 
of  the  original  may  show  through  the  veil  which  has 
been  cast  upon  it. 

A.  C.  G. 

October,  18G7. 


a  3 


AUTHOR'S    PREFACE. 


I  PURPOSE  to  write  the  literary  history  of  the  Middle 
Age,  from  the  fifth  to  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
the  time  of  Dante,  before  whom  I  pause  as  the  wor- 
thiest representative  of  that  great  epoch.  But  in  the 
history  of  literature  my  principal  study  will  be  the 
civilization  of  which  it  is  the  flower,  and  in  that  civi- 
lization I  shall  glance  especially  at  the  handiwork  of 
Christianity.  The  whole  idea,  therefore,  of  my  book 
will  be  to  show  how  Christianity  availed  to  evoke  from 
the  ruins  of  Eome,  and  the  hordes  encamped  there- 
upon, a  new  society  which  was  cajiable  of  holding  truth, 
doing  good,  and  finding  the  true  idea  of  beauty. 

We  know  how  Gibbon,  the  historian,  visited  Rome 
in  his  youth,  and  how  one  day,  as,  full  of  its  associa- 
tions, he  was  wandering  over  the  Capitol,  he  beheld  a 
long  procession  of  Franciscans  issuing  from  the  doors 
of  the  Ara  Coeli  Basilica,  and  brushing  with  their 
sandals  the  pavement  which  had  been  traversed  by  so 
many  triumphs.  It  was  then  that,  indignation  giving 
him  inspiration,  he  formed  the  plan  of  avenging  the 
antiquity  which  had  been   outraged  by  Christian  bar- 


Xll  AUTHOR  s    PREFACE. 

bariem,  and  conceived  the  idea  of  a  history  of  the 
decline  of  the  Koman  Empire.  And  I  have  also  seen 
the  monks  of  Ara  Coeli  crowding  the  old  pavement  of 
the  Capitolian  Jove.  I  rejoiced  therein  as  in  a  victory 
of  love  over  force,  and  resolved  to  describe  the  history 
of  progress  in  that  epoch  where  the  English  philoso- 
pher only  saw  decay,  the  history  of  civilization  in  the 
period  of  barbarism,  the  history  of  thought  as  it 
escaped  from  the  shipwreck  of  the  empire  of  letters 
and  traversed  at  length  those  stormy  waves  of  invasion, 
as  the  Hebrews  passed  the  Red  Sea,  and  under  a 
similar  guidance,  fortl  tegente  hracliio.  I  know  of  no 
fact  which  is  more  supernatural,  or  more  plainly  proves 
the  divinity  of  Christianity,  than  that  of  its  having 
saved  the  human  intellect. 

I  shall  be  reproached  mayhap  with  an  inopportune 
zeal,  since  the  accusations  of  the  eighteenth  century 
have  fallen  into  oblivion,  and  public  favour  has  re- 
turned, and  even  with  some  excess,  to  the  Middle  Age. 
But,  on  the  one  hand,  little  confidence  can  be  placed  in 
these  al)rupt  returns  of  popularity  :  they  love  like  the 
waves  to  quit  the  shores  which  they  have  been  caress- 
ing, and  indeed  on  looking  more  closely  upon  the 
movement  of  men's  minds,  we  may  already  perceive 
that  many  are  beginning  to  stand  aloof  from  those  Chris- 
tian ages  whose  genius  they  admire,  but  whose  auste- 
rity they  repudiate.  In  the  depths  of  human  nature 
there  lies  an  imperishable  instinct  of  Paganism,  which 
reveals  itself  in  every  age,  and  is  not  extinct  in  our 
own,  which  ever  willingly  returns  to  pagan  philosophy, 
to  pagan  law,  to  pagan  art,  because  it  finds  therein  its 
dreams  realized  and  its  instincts  satisfied.  The  thesis 
of  Gibbon  is  still  that  of  half  Germany,  as  well  as  of 


AUTHOR  s   PREFACE.  Xlll 

those  sensualistic  schools  which  accuse  Christianity  of 
having  stifled  the  legitimate  development  of  humanity 
in  suppressing  the  instincts  of  the  flesh  ;  in  relegating 
to  a  future  life  pleasures  which  should  be  found  here 
below  ;  in  destropng  that  world  of  enchantment  in 
which  Greece  had  set  up  strength,  wealth,  and  pleasure 
as  divinities,  to  substitute  for  it  a  world  of  gloom, 
wherein  humility,  poverty,  and  chastity  are  keeping 
watch  at  the  foot  of  the  cross.  On  the  other  hand, 
that  very  excess  of  admiration  which  is  paid  to  the 
Middle  Age  has  its  perils.  Its  results  may  well  be  to 
rouse  noble  minds  against  an  epoch,  the  very  evils  of 
which  men  seek  to  justify.  Christianity  will  appear 
responsible  for  all  the  disorders  of  an  age  in  which  it 
is  represented  as  lord  over  every  heart.  We  must 
learn  to  praise  the  majesty  of  cathedrals  and  the 
heroism  of  crusades,  without  condoning  the  horrors  of 
an  eternal  war,  the  harshness  of  feudal  institutions, 
the  scandal  of  a  perpetual  strife  of  kings  with  the  holy 
see  for  their  divorces  and  their  simonies.  We  must 
see  the  evil  as  it  was,  that  is  in  formidable  aspect, 
precisely  that  we  may  better  recognize  the  services  of 
the  Church,  whose  glory  it  was  throughout  those 
scantily  studied  ages  not  to  have  reigned,  but  to  have 
struggled.  Therefore  I  enter  upon  my  subject  with  a 
horror  of  barbarism,  with  a  respect  for  whatever  was 
legitimate  in  the  heritage  of  the  old  civilization.  I 
admire  the  wisdom  of  the  Church  in  not  repudiating 
that  heritage,  but  in  preserving  it  through  labour, 
purifying  it  th^'ough  holiness,  fertilizing  it  through 
genius,  and  making  it  pass  into  our  hands  that  it 
might  increase  the  more.  For  if  I  recognize  the 
decline  of  the  old  world  under  the  law  of  sin,  I  believe 


XIV  AUTHOR  s   PREFACE. 

in  its  progress  throughout  Christian  times.  I  do  not 
fear  the  falls  and  the  gaps  which  may  interrupt  it,  for 
the  chilly  nights  which  succeed  the  heat  of  its  days  do 
not  prevent  the  summer  from  following  its  course  and 
ripening  its  fruits. 

History  presents  no  commoner  spectacle  than  that 
of  generations  that  are  feehle  succeeding  to  those  that 
are  strong;  centuries  of  destruction  following  ages  of 
creation,  and  preparing  unconsciously,  and  when  bent 
only  upon  ruin,  the  first  foundations  of  a  new  construc- 
tion. When  the  barbarians  levelled  the  temples  of 
old  Rome,  they  did  but  make  ready  the  marble  where- 
with the  Rome  of  the  Popes  has  built  its  churches. 
Those  Goths  were  the  pioneers  of  the  great  architects 
of  the  Middle  Age.  For  this  reason,  then,  I  thank  God 
for  those  stormy  years,  and  that  amidst  the  panic  of 
a  society  awaiting  dissolution,  I  have  entered  upon  a 
course  of  study  in  which  I  have  found  security.  I 
learn  not  to  despair  of  my  own  century  by  returning 
to  more  threatening  epochs,  and  beholding  the  perils 
which  have  been  traversed  by  that  Christian  society  of 
which  we  are  the  disciples,  of  which,  if  it  want  us,  we 
know  how  to  act  as  champions.  I  do  not  close  my 
eyes  to  the  storms  of  the  present  day  ;  I  know  that  I 
myself,  and  with  me  this  work  to  which  I  can  promise 
no  lasting  existence,  may  perish  therein.  I  write 
nevertheless,  for  though  God  has  not  given  me  strength 
to  guide  the  plough,  yet  still  I  must  obey  the  law  of 
labour  and  fulfil  my  daily  task.  I  write  as  those 
workmen  of  the  primitive  centuries  used  to  work,  who 
moulded  vessels  of  clay  or  of  glass  for  the  daily  wants 
of  the  Church,  and  who  pictured  thereon  in  coarse 
design  the  Good  Shepherd  or  the  Virgin  and  the  Saints. 


AUTHORS    PREFACE.  XV 

These  poor  folk  had  no  dreams  of  the  future,  yet 
some  fragments  of  their  vessels  found  in  the  ceme- 
teries have  appeared  1,500  years  after  them,  to  hear 
witness  to  and  prove  the  antiquity  of  some  contested 
doctrine.* 

*  This  preface  is  an  extract  from  the  Avant-Propos  to  the 
larger  work  on  European  Civilization,  designed  by  M.  Ozanam. 
It  is  inserted  as  showing  the  scope  of  his  plan,  and  also  as 
bearing  upon  as  much  of  it  as  appears  in  the  following  pages. 
-{Tr.) 


CONTENTS 

OF  VOL.   I. 


CHAPTEK  I. 

OF    PEOGKESS    IN    THE    AGES    0?    DECLINE. 

Subject  proposed.  The  education  of  the  modern  nations  ; 
the  two  theories  of  progress.  Progress  by  Christianity. 
Principle  of  dechne  ia  Paganism  ;  true  progi'ess  begins 
with  our  era.  Cluistian  ideas  of  truth,  goodness,  and 
beaut}',  and  thek  results.  Christian  philosophy  estab- 
lishes the  law  of  progress,  which  histoiy  shows  to  be 
necessary  to  humanity.  The  process  by  which  mankind 
gaiued  possession  of  the  eai'th,  and  the  knowledge  of 
God  sketched.  Objections  to  the  doctriue  of  progress, 
as  tending  to  contempt  for  the  past  or  to  fatahsm. 
Distinction  between  humanity  and  man  the  iudividual 
as  to  progress  ;  fi-eedom  of  the  latter  ;  his  power  of 
resistance  ;  general  progress  of  humanity  estabhshed. 
Two  piinciples  in  man,  perfection  and  cori'uption, 
answering  to  civihzation  and  barbarism  in  society  ; 
progi-ess  therefore  a  struggle.  Fall  of  the  Emph-e  ; 
respect  of  the  provinces  for  Rome,  and  consequent 
terror  at  the  catastrophe.  St.  Augustine  and  the  "  City 
of  God."  Christianity  becomes  master  of  the  conscience. 
Its  mission-work  ;  it  saves  science,  social  institutions, 
the  arts  ;  develops  the  good  instincts  of  the  German 
tribes.  Good  effects  of  the  Empire  of  Charlemagne  ; 
its  fall.  The  Normans  and  Himgarians  complete  the 
pmiiication  of  Europe.  PJse  of  the  modern  nations, 
France,  Germany,  Italy.  The  feudal  system.  The 
Chm-ch  encom-ages  chivalry  ;  learning  and  civilization 
fostered  in  the  monasteries,  in  Ii'eland,  France,  and 
Germany.  John  Scotus  Erigena.  Literary  tastes  of 
Alfred  the  Great.  The  Greek  language  at  St.  Gall. 
Gerbert.  Vernacular  preacliing  prescribed  by  the 
Council  of   Toui's.      The  monastic  reform  at  Cluny. 


XVlll  CONTENTS, 

PAOE 

Hildebrand  opens  a  tliird  period.  Henry  IV.  at  Canossa. 
Struggle  between  the  Chiu-ch  and  Empire.  The  Cru- 
sades. Moral  unity  of  the  Christian  commonwealth. 
Gradual  decay  of  feudaUsm.  The  Lombard  republics. 
Peter  Damiani.  Idea  of  political  equality  grows.  Care 
of  Gregory  VII.  for  learning.  St.  Anselm  ;  the  School- 
men. I'aris,  Aix-la-Chapelle,  Rome,  the  three  capitals 
of  Cluistendom.  The  Nibelungen-hed  ;  the  Cid.  Chris- 
tian poetrj'  culminates  in  Dante.  Progress  in  industry 
fostered  by  the  Chiu'ch.  Contrast  between  the  towns  of 
antiquity  and  those  of  Christian  times.     Conclusion      .       1 


CHAPTER    II. 

THE    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Two  ci\-ihzations  confront  each  other  ;  one  pagan,  the  other 
Christian.  Paganism  still  rooted  in  the  popular  mind. 
Some  of  the  good  things  of  the  old  system  incorporated 
with  the  new.  The  literature  of  the  time.  Claudian, 
Rutilius  Numatianus,  Sidonius  Aj^llinairis  ;  pagan 
tone  of  their  writings.'  Tïïé  îradition  of  learning. 
Donatus,  Martianus  Capella.  St.  Augustine  ;  his  pro- 
gress towards  Christianitj''.  Growth  of  monasticism  ; 
the  new  faith  takes  gradual  possession  of  tlie  lay  world. 
The  education  of  women.  The  old  literature  a  strong- 
hold of  Paganism  ;  is  gradually  adopted,  and  purified 
by  the  Cliristian  Church,  which  soon  has  poets  of  its 
own.  St.  Ambrose  introduces  hymnody  into  the  Western 
Church.  St.  Paulinus.  Prudentius'  rise  above  the 
crowd  of  Christian  versifiers 48 

CHAPTER  III. 

PAGANISM. 

The  old  faith  still  holds  the  affections  of  multitudes.  Aspect 
of  Rome  at  the  visit  of  Ilonorius,  a.u.  40i.  Claudian's 
panegyric.  Christianity  considered  by  many  a  passing 
frenzy.  Origin  of  the  Roman  religion  ;  it  is  modified 
and  corrupted  by  Greek  and  Eastern  importations  ;  it 
possessed  some  line  ideas  ;  e.  (j.,  of  justice,  and  regard 
for  the  dead  ;  its  gross  anthropomorphism  issuing  in 
adoration  of  the  reigning  Ciiîsar,  encouraged  the  two 
passions  terror  and  lust.  Human  sacrifice  to  the  infer- 
nal gods;  worship  of  Cybele  and  Venus.  Religious 
aspect  of  the   games  of  the  circus  and  amphitheatre; 


CONTENTS. 

their  demoralizing  tendency  ;  passion  of  the  people  for 
them,  making  them  cling  to  Paganism  ;  their  intluence 
on  Aljrpius.  Philosopliy  a  revolt  against  the  pagan  cult. 
The  Neoplatonists  of  Alexandria;  Apiileius,  Plotinus, 
theii"  gi-eat  popularitj-  in  Rome  ;  sj'stem  of  Plotinus  ;  its 
grandeur  of  theoiy,  and  distant  resemblance  to  Chris- 
tianity; it  led  back  to  pagan  naturalism.  Allegorical 
intei-pretations  given  to  the  old  myths.  Apuleius,  Jam- 
blichus,  Poi-phj'ry.  Prevalent  scepticism  and  cre- 
dulity. Conservative  feeling  of  the  Pioman  patriciate, 
represented  by  Sj-mmachus  ;  his  character  and  opinions 
sketched.  Hopeless  conniption  of  society  on  the  appear- 
ance of  Alaric /  74 


eâr^ 


CHAPTER  IV. 

THE    FALL    OF   PAGANISM. 

It  did  not  fall  by  legislation,  but  by  controversy  and  example. 
Calumnies  against  and  apologies  for  the  new  system. 
St.  Augustine's  method  of  argument.  Volusian.  Pagan- 
ism strong  in  rural  clisti-icts  after  the  Church  had  gained 
the  to's\'as.  St.  JMaximus  of  Tui'in  ;  the  new  religion 
brightens  the  condition  of  the  poor  ;  its  charity.  St. 
Jerome,  Lseta,  and  Albinus.  St.  Augustine  and  the 
town  of  Suffecta  ;  the  martyi'dom  of  Telemachus  ends 
the  gladiatorial  shows.  PoUcy  of  the  Church  in  pre- 
serving beauty  of  worsliip,  and  adapting  many  temples. 
Objections  of  Vigilantius  answered  by  St.  Jerome. 
Efforts  of  Christianity  against  Roman  and  Gennan 
Paganism.  Pagan  instincts  survive  in  the  Middle  Age  ; 
the  old  gods  are  believed  in  as  daemons  ;  bloodj'  spectacles 
remain.  Petrarch  at  Naples  ;  the  Albigenses  :  the  Alex- 
andiian  Pantheism  breaks  out  in  the  writings  of  John 
Scotus  Erigena,  Amauiy  de  Bene,  David  de  Diuand  ;  the 
occult  sciences  and  magic  flourish;  sanguinary  measures 
against  them.  Astrology  encom'aged  by  Frederic  II. 
and  the  Italian  repubhcs.  Struggle  between  truth  and 
eiTor  then,  as  ever,  maintained 109 


CHAPTER  V. 

LAW. 

The  idea  of  law  peculiar  to  Rome  ;  she  governed  thereby  when 
she  had  ceased  to  conquer.     The  two  sources  of  law  in 


XX  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

the  fifth  century — first,  the  work  of  the  jm-isconsults, 
from  Augustus  to  the  Antonines,  modified  by  the  "  Law 
of  Citations  ;"  second,  the  constitutions  of  the  Christian 
piinces,  digested  imder  Tlieodosius  II.  and  Valenti- 
nian  III.  The  Law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  ;  homage  paid 
to  it  in  theory  ;  its  exaltation  of  Rome,  and  theocratic 
character;  pati'ician  privileges  under  it,  gradually  in- 
vaded by  the  plebs,  and  the  provinces  under  the  Empire. 
The  Prtetor's  edicts  temper  its  harslmess  equitably. 
Further  reform  fi-om  the  Stoic  jui-isconsults.  Legal 
fictions.  Analogy  between  the  State  law  and  State 
religion.  Non-natural  interpretations.  Legal  knowledge 
the  property  of  adepts.  Absolutism  of  the  State  be- 
comes di\dnity  of  the  Emperor  ;  his  word  becomes  law  ; 
he  possesses  the  supreme  pontificate  and  the  whole 
Roman  territory.  The  fiscal  system  ;  its  cruel  exactions. 
Prmciple  of  the  inequality  of  man  ;  power  of  the  father. 
Subject  position  of  wife  and  son.  Slavery.  Cruelty  in 
theory  and  practice.  Cicero  and  Libanius  cited.  Strong 
feeling  against  manumission.  Cato,  Colmnella,  and 
Gains  on  slaves.  The  Law  of  Citations  confirms 
the  old  edicts  as  to  slavery.  The  Theodosian  Code 
tempers  them.  Clu'istianity  accepted  the  Roman  legisla- 
tion, but  set  its  face  against  inequaUties  and  fictions. 
Improvement  in  law  very  gradual  under  the  Christian 
emperors,  until  the  Theodosian  Code,  which  protected 
slaves  and  redi'essed  family  inequalities.  The  Roman 
law  accepted  by  tlie  barbarians  — "  Breviarium  Alarica- 
num"  and  "Papiani  Responsa  " — and  formed  the  basis 
of  the  Frankish  capitularies 136 


CHAPTER  VI. 

PAGAN    LITEBATUBE    (POETEY). 

The  ancient  literature  had  much  to  correct,  as  religion  and 
law  had.  Its  decline  began  with  tlie  age  of  Augustus, 
who  closed  the  golden  era  of  letters.  Literatiu'e,  stifled 
beneath  the  growing  despotism,  was  somewhat  reUeved 
by  the  accession  of  Christian  princes.  Valentinian 
tlirew  open  the  tribunals.  Constantino  encouraged 
poetr}^  ;  the  historical  form  of  Roman  poetry.  Claudian 
tlie  poet  of  the  fifth  century;  his  attachment  to  the 
old  cult  ;  poi)ularity  at  Rome  ;  is  patronized  by  the 
Senate  and  Stilicho  ;  attachment  to  mythology  ;  sarcasm 


CONTENTS.  XXI 

PACK 

against  Christianity  ;  panegyi*izes  Honorius  ;  his  in- 
tense love  for  Rome  ;  is  to  be  ranked  as  a  poet  after  Lucan. 
Poetrj'  in  decline  ;  custom  of  public  declamation  con- 
tributes to  it.  Metaphors  become  inflated  and  obscure, 
and  form  elaborate  and  tricky.  Eutihus  Numantianus 
also  pays  honour  to  Rome,  and  abuses  Christian  institu- 
tions more  openly.  Sidonius  Apollinaris  and  Fortunatus, 
though  Christian,  still  freely  use  pagan  aUusions.  The 
Drama  was  piuified,  but  not  suppressed.  Two  comedies 
of  the  fourth  century,  "  The  Game  of  tlie  Seven  Sages," 
and  "  Querolus  ;  "  the  plot  of  the  latter  shows  the  state 
of  society,  especially  among  the  servile  classes  ;  family 
life  and  property  menaced.  Theodoiic  opens  the  theatre 
of  Llarcellus,  a.d.  510.  Terence  jilayed  in  Gaul  in  the 
seventh  and  eighth  centuries.  Bishops  forbidden,  a.d. 
t)80,  to  attend  theatres.  Letter  of  Alcuin  on  the  same 
subject.  The  Drama  in  the  eleventh  century.  Comedies 
by  Vitalis  of  Blois.  Paganism  was  perpetuated  in  litera- 
ture. ]\lythology  in  the  mosaics  of  Ravenna  and  Venice, 
and  generally  in  manners  and  the  arts,  as  well  as  in 
poetry  more  or  less  to  the  time  of  the  Re\Tlval       .         .159 


CHAPTER  YII. 

THE   LITERARY   TRADITION. 

Poetry  the  preaching  of  Paganism.  This  idea  had  been  lost 
under  the  Empire  when  it  descended  to  panegjTic. 
How  the  tradition  of  literatiu-e  was  per])etuated.  In  the 
eai-her  period  of  Roman  historj-,  teaching  depended  on 
the  father  of  the  family.  First  schools  of  grummarand 
rhetoric.  Thek  progress,  notwithstaudbig  the  jealousy 
of  authority.  Measures  of  Caesar,  Vespasian,  and 
Alexander  Severus,  in  favour  of  public  instruction. 
Views  of  Phny  the  Younger.  Constantine  ratifies 
tlie  old  and  makes  new  laws  in  favour  of  liberal  studies. 
Edict  of  Valentinian  and  Gratian.  Public  teaching 
more  under  control.  Le;_nslation  of  Julian.  Theodosius 
the  Younger,  and  Valentinian  III.  Thi-ee  periods  ia 
the  history  of  public  instruction  throughout  the  Empire. 
Increase  of  private  seminaries.  Intellectual  movement 
in  Gaul,  Germany,  Rritam.  and  Spain.  Oiigiu  of  the 
universities.  Episcopal  schools.  I'agan  cbaracter  of 
the  tuition  of  the  tilth  centuiy.  Macrobius;  the 
"  Satmnales."     The  higher  teaching  comprised  gram- 


XXll  CONTENTS. 


PAGE 


mar,  eloqueuce,  and  law.  Grammar  embraced  philologj' 
,  and  criticism.  Romanists  and  Hellenists.  Anomalists 
and  analogists.  High  respect  paid  to  Virgil.  Thé 
grammar  of  Donatus.  The  summary  of  Martianus 
Capella.  The  encycloptedia  of  antiquity.  "  The 
Nuptials  of  Mercury  and  Philologia"  formed  the  text- 
books of  the  dark  ages.  Moulded  Cluistian  education 
up  to  the  time  of  the  Revival 187 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

HOW   LITERATURE    BECAME    CHRISTIAN. 

The  ancient  literature  saved  by  means  of  commentators  and 
grammarians.  It  had  to  become  Christian  before 
reaching  the  Middle  Age.  Question  as  to  the  pro- 
priety of    receiving   profane    letters  into    the    Church, 

4  complicated  by  their  essentially  pagan  tone.  Oppo- 
sition of  Tertullian.  The  charm  of  the  old  poetry 
caused  lapses  to  Paganism.  History  of  Licentius.  The 
polic}^  of  the  Emperor  Julian.  History  of  the  rhetori- 
cian Victorinus.  Difficulties  of  the  Church  in  adopt- 
ing literature.  The  catechetical  school  of  Alexandria. 
St.  Clement  of  Alexandria,  Origen,  St.  Basil,  and  others, 
show  the  accord  between  philosophy  and  the  faith.  The 
Greek  Church  i-eceives  the  ancient  literature.  Pliilo- 
sophy  to  act  as  preparation  for  and  demonstration  of 
Christianity.  Another  school  thinks  philosophy  dan- 
gerous. It  is  headed  by  Hermias  among  the  Greeks  ; 
Tertulhan,  Arnobius,  and  Lactantius  among  the  Latins. 
This  school  lasts,  but  is  not  dominant  in  the  Church. 
Results  iu  mysticism  and  obscurantism.  Hesitation  of 
St.  Jerome  ;  his  love  for  the  old  learning  ;  finally  he 
joins  the  more  liberal  school.  St.  Augustine  ;  his  know- 
ledge of  the  works  of  Cicero,  Virgil,  and  Plato  ;  he 
declares  for  the  old  learning  in  the  "  Confessions  "  and 
the  "  City  of  God  ;  "  analysis  of  his  work  on  "  Order." 
Philosophy  and  science  lead  to  a  knowledge  of  God. 
Parallel  between  the  Church  and  the  old  literature,  and 
the  Israelites  and  theiEgyptians;  the  decision  of  Augus- 
tine practically  decides  tlie  question.  Devotion  to  tlie 
memory  of  Virgil  in  the  Middle  Age  ;  regarded  as  a 
prophet,  owing  to  the  Fourth  Eclogue.  The  Church 
preserved  the  old  literary  tradition.  Some  of  its  e\'ils 
were  perpetuated  iu  spite  of  her  efforts  ....  209 


CONTENTS.  XXUl 

CHAPTER  IX. 

THEOLOGY. 

PAGE 

The  vices  of  the  old  ci\dlization  ;  Faith  its  regenerating  prin- 
ci^^le,  Reason  its  aiixihary  ;  Christianity  honours  both 
and  places  them  in  proper  relation.  The  two  orders  of 
truth,  one  above,  the  other  withm,  the  gi'asp  of  human 
reason  ;  the  latter  had  been  mixed  with  error  until  the 
appearance  of  the  Christian  revelation.  Force  of  the 
new  faith  in  adverse  circumstances.  Revealed  doctrine 
defended  scientifically.  The  Christian  apologists,  Justin, 
Athenagoras,  Tertullian.  The  Christian  School  of 
Alexandria,  Pantamus,  Clement,  Origen.  St.  Gregory 
Thaumaturgus  ;  his  eulogy  on  the  latter.  Pdse  of 
theologj^  :  St.  Athanasius,  St.  Basil,  St.  Gregory  of 
Nazianzura,  St.  John  Chrysostom  in  the  East;  St. 
Jerome,  St.  Ambrose,  and  St.  Augustine  in  the  West  ; 
they  devote  themselves  to  exegesis,  moral  theology,  and 
dogmatic  theology,  respectively.  Dangers  to  Clms- 
tianity  ;  first  from  Paganism,  by  pei  secution  and  the 
Alexandrian  philosophy  ;  secondly,  internal  perils,  first  a 
return  to  Paganism  through  Gnosticism  and  Manichae- 
ism  ;  rise  of  the  former;  its  connection  with  Buddhism  ; 
a  sketch  of  its  system.  Valentinus,  Basihdes, 
Carpocrates,  and  ^larcion.  Gnosticism  merged 
into  the  system  of  Manes.  Sketch  of  the  Mani- 
chaean  doctiines  and  practice  ;  their  essentially  pagan 
tendency.  Augustine  a  Manichee  ;  he  becomes  their 
chief  opjiouent  ;  his  work  "  De  Moribus  Manichseorum." 
Arianism;  its  rise  in  Platonism  ;  the  "  Logos."  Pliilo, 
Numenius,  and  Plotinus  ;  the  system  of  Arius.  The 
created  Word  ;  it  issues  in  Deism.  Fascinations  of  the 
Stoicism  of  Zeno,  which  paves  the  way  for  Pelagianism  ; 
both  heresies  destructive  to  Christianity  ;  are  opposed 
respectively  by  St.  Athanasius  and  St.  Augustine.  The 
faith  handed  on  intact.  The  logical  character  of  the 
Middle  Age  ;  its  development  owing  to  theology     .         .  237 


CHAPTER  X. 

CHRISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY. 

Arianism  powerful  amongst  the  barVarians;  the  Arian 
kingdom  of  Theodoric;  it  prevails  amongst  tlie  Gotlis 
and  A'andals  ;   aj^pears   again  in  Islam.     Manichansm 


XXIV  CONTENTS. 

PAGE 

exists  in  Armenia  and  breaks  out  in  the  Albigensian 
tenets.  Theologians  of  the  thirteenth  century.  Philoso- 
phy ;  it  accompanies  every  religion,  whether  true  or  false; 
the  two  methods,  dogmatism  and  mysticism.  Thaïes 
and  Pythagoras  ;  Plato  and  Aristotle  ;  their  magnificent 
efforts  to  gi'asp  the  idea  of  God.  The  systems  of 
Epicurus,  Zeno,  and  Pyrrho.  Cicero  struggles  in  vain 
against  Pyrrhonism.  Christianity  gives  philosophy  a 
foundation  of  certitude  ;  instances  of  Descartes  and 
Kepler.  Metaphysical  system  of  St.  Augustine  ;  his 
early  youth,  profligacy,  and  lofty  aspirations  ;  his  love  of 
beauty  and  Manichœan  phase  ;  is  sent  by  Symmachus 
to  Milan  :  comes  under  the  influence  of  St.  Ambrose  ; 
liistory  of  liis  conversion  ;  the  "  Confessions  "  a  treatise 
of  mystical  pleilosophy  ;  was  balanced  by  his  dogmatic 
philosophy  ;  the  intellectual  society  of  Cassiciacmn  ; 
development  of  his  treatises,  "  Contra  Academos," 
etc.  ;  he  becomes  Bishop  of  Hippo  ;  his  mental  energy 
and  versatility  ;  sketch  of  his  psychology  ;  his  proof  of 
the  immortality  of  the  soul  ;  the  existence  of  God  ; 
physical  proof  of  it  ;  the  originality  of  his  metaphysical 
proof  of  the  same  ;  avoids  a  pantheistic  conclusion  by 
the  dogma  of  creation  ;  general  character  of  his  meta- 
physics ;  he  is  followed  in  the  same  path  by  St.  Anselm, 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  Descartes,  Leibnitz,  and  Male- 
branche 2(55 


HISTORY  OF   CIVILIZATION 


FIFTH    CENTURY. 


VOL.  I.- -ERRATA. 

Pa<'el68,  for  "turning"  read  "standing." 
"    168    for  "exalt"  read  "exalts. 

211, /or  "Septints"  read  "Sophists. 

213*  for  "Kings"  read  "beings." 

253   /or  "inexpressibly  true"  read  "inexpressible  here. 

262,  for  "endorsed"  read  "enclosed. 


doubtless  fascinating  to  watch  the  genius  of  a  people 
burst  forth  under  a  burning  or  an  icy  sky,  on  virgin 
soil,  or  in  historic  land,  jdeld  to  the  impress  of  con- 
temporary events,  and  put  forth  its  first  blossoms  in 
those  epic  traditions  or  in  those  familiar  songs,  which 
still  retain  all  the  uncultured  perfume  of  nature.  But 
beneath  that  popular  poetry  wherein  the  great  nations 
of  Europe  have  shown  all  the  variety  of  their  re- 
spective characters,  we  perceive  a  literature  which  is 
learned  but  common  to  all  alike,  and  a  depository  of 

VOL.  I.  1 


2  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

the  theological,  philosophical,  and  political  doctrines 
which  moulded  for  eight  hundred  years  the  education 
of  Christendom.  Let  us  study  that  common  education, 
and  consider  the  modern  nations,  no  longer  in  that 
isolation  to  which  the  special  historian  of  England  or 
of  Italy  condemns  himself,  but  in  the  spirit  of  that 
fruitful  intercourse  marked  out  for  them  by  Providence, 
tracing  the  history  of  literature  up  to  the  Middle  Age, 
by  reascending  to  that  obscure  moment  which  beheld 
letters  escaping  from  the  collapse  of  the  old  order,  and 
thence  following  it  through  the  schools  of  the  barbarous 
epoch,  till  the  new  settlement  of  the  nations,  and  its 
egress  from  those  schools  to  take  modern  languages  in 
possession. 

This  long  period  extends  from  the  fifth  to  the  thir- 
teenth century.  Amidst  the  tempests  of  our  times,  and 
in  face  of  the  brevity  of  life,  a  powerful  charm  draws  us 
to  these  studies.  "VVe  seek  in  the  history  of  literature 
for  civilization,  and  in  the  story  of  the  latter  we  mark 
human  progress  by  the  aid  of  Christianity.  Perhaps 
in  a  period  in  which  the  bravest  spirits  can  only  see 
decay,  a  profession  of  the  doctrine  of  progress  is  out  of 
place  ;  nor  can  one  renew  an  old  and  discredited  posi- 
tion, useless  formerly  as  a  commonplace,  dangerous  now- 
a-days  as  a  paradox.  This  generous  belief,  or  youthful 
illusion,  if  the  name  suits  better,  seems  nothing  better 
than  a  rash  opinion,  alike  reproved  by  conscience  and 
denied  by  history.  The  dogma  of  human  perfectibility 
finds  little  adhesion  in  a  discouraged  society,  but  may- 
hap that  very  discouragement  is  in  fault.  Though  often 
useful  to  humble  man,  it  is  never  prudent  to  drive  him 
to  despair.  Souls  must  not,  as  Plato  says,  lose  their 
wings,  and,  renouncing  a   perfection  pronounced  im- 


OF  PROGKESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.      3 

possible,  fling  themselves  into  pleasures  of  easy  achieve- 
ment. For  there  are  two  doctrines  of  progress  :  the  first, 
nourished  in  the  schools  of  sensualism,  rehabilitates 
the  passions,  and,  promising  the  nations  an  earthly 
paradise  at  the  end  of  a  flowery  path,  gives  them  only 
a  premature  hell  at  the  end  of  a  way  of  blood  ;  whilst 
the  second,  born  from  and  inspired  by  Christianity, 
points  to  progress  in  the  victory  of  the  spirit  over  the 
flesh,  promises  nothing  but  as  prize  of  warfare,  and  pro- 
nounces the  creed  which  carries  war  into  the  individual 
soul  to  be  the  only  way  of  peace  for  the  nations. 

We  must  try  and  restore  the  doctrine  of  progress 
by  Christianity  as  a  comfort  in  these  troubled  days  ; 
we  must  justify  it  in  refitting  its  own  religious  and 
philosophical  principles,  and  cleansing  it  from  errors 
Avhich  had  placed  it  at  the  disposal  of  the  most  hate- 
ful aims  ;  we  must  prove  it  by  applying  it  to  those  ages 
which  seem  chosen  to  bely  it,  to  an  epoch  of  worse 
aspect,  of  misery  unrivalled  by  our  own — for  we  cannot 
join  with  those  who  accuse  Pro\idence  itself  in  the 
blame  they  cast  on  the  present  time.  Traversing  rapidly 
the  period  between  the  fall  of  the  Empire  and  the 
decline  of  the  barbarian  powers,  where  most  historians 
have  found  only  ruin,  we  shall  see  the  renewal  of  the 
human  mind,  and  sketch  the  history  of  light  in  an  age 
of  darkness,  of  progress  in  an  era  of  decay. 

Paganism  had  no  idea  of  progress  ;  rather  it  felt 
itself  to  lie  under  a  law  of  irremediable  decay.  Mindful 
of  the  height  whence  it  had- fallen,  Humanity  knew 
no  way  to  remount  its  steeps.  The  Sacred  Book  of  the 
Indians  declared  that  in  primitive  ages,  "Justice  stood 
firm  on  four  feet,  truth  was  supreme,  and  mortals  owed 
to  iniquity  none  of  their  good  things  ;  but  as  time  went 

1  * 


4  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

on,  justice  lost  each  foot  in  succession,  and  as  each 
fell,  rightly  earned  property  diminished  one  quarter." 
Hesiod  amused  the  Greeks  hy  his  tale  of  the  Four 
Ages,  the  first  of  which  saw  modesty  and  justice  fly, 
"leaving  to  mortals  only  devouring  grief  and  irre- 
parable woe."  The  Eomans,  the  most  sensible  of  men, 
placed  in  their  ancestors  the  ideal  of  all  wisdom  ;  and 
the  senators  of  the  age  of  Tiberius,  seated  at  the  feet  of 
their  ancestral  images,  resigned  themselves  to  deterio- 
ration in  the  words  of  Horace — 

iEtas  parentum,  pejor  avis  tiilit 
Nos  neqiiiores  mox  datm'os 
Progeniein  vitiosiorem. 

And  if  here  or  there  a  wonderful  foreboding  of  the 
future  breaks  out,  as  in  the  case  of  Seneca,  announcing 
in  grand  terms  the  revelation  reserved  by  science  for 
futurity,  they  were  but  the  dawn-lights  of  Christianity 
just  arising  upon  the  earth,  and  gilding  with  its  rays 
intellects  which  seemed  most  remote  from  its  in- 
fluence. 

It  is  with  the  Gospel  that  the  doctrine  of  progress 
appeared,  not  only  teaching,  but  enforcing  human 
perfectibility  ;  the  saying  Estate  pcrfecti  condemns  hu- 
manity to  an  endless  advance — for  its  end  is  in  eternity. 
And  what  was  of  precept  to  the  individual,  became  the 
law  of  Society.  St.  Paul,  comparing  the  Church  to  a 
mighty  body,  desires  it  to  increase  to  a  perfect  maturity, 
and  realize  in  its  plenitude  the  humanity  of  Christ  ;  and 
a  Father  of  the  Church,  St.  Vincent  of  Lerins,  confirms 
this  reading  of  the  Sacred  Text  by  inquiring,  when  he 
had  established  the  immutability  of  Catholic  dogma, 
"  Will,  then,  there  be  no  progress  in  the  Church  of 
Christ  ?     Surely  there  will,  and  in  plenty  ;    for  who 


OF  PROGEESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.       5 

could  be  so  jealous  of  the  good  of  mankind,  so  accursed 
of  God,  as  to  stay  that  progress  ?  But  it  must  be  ad- 
vance and  not  change  ;  of  necessity,  with  the  ages  and 
centuries,  there  must  be  an  increase  of  intelligence, 
of  wisdom,  of  knowledge,  for  each  as  for  all." 

The  great  Bossuet  continued  this  patristic  tradition, 
and  though  so  hostile  to  innovation,  believed  in  an  ad- 
vance in  the  faith. 

"  Although  constant  and  perpetual,  the  Catholic 
unity  is  not  without  her  progress  ;  she  is  known  in  one 
place  more  thoroughly  than  in  another,  at  one  time 
more  clearly,  more  distinctly,  more  universally  than  at 
another."  We  cannot  wonder  at  this  contrast  between 
the  sentiments  of  antiquity  and  of  Christian  times. 
Progress  is  an  effort  whereby  man  breaks  loose  from  his 
present  imperfection  to  seek  perfection  ;  from  the  real, 
to  approach  the  ideal  ;  from  self-regard  to  that  which 
is  higher  than  self;  when  he  loves  and  is  content  with 
his  corruption,  there  can  be  no  progress.  The  ancients 
were,  doubtless,  aware  of  the  divine  spell  of  perfection  ; 
in  many  points  they  even  came  near  to  it,  but  perceived 
only  under  an  obscure  and  misty  figure,  though  it 
elevated  souls  for  a  time,  weighed  down  by  pagan 
egoism,  they  fell  back  upon  self;  and  that  mankind 
might  come  forth  from  itself  not  for  a  mere  moment, 
but  for  ever,  the  pure  perfection  of  God's  revelation 
must  shine  upon  his  soul. 

The  God  of  Christianity  stands  revealed  as  Truth, 
Goodness,  and  Beauty,  drawing  man  to  Him  by  faith 
through  Truth,  by  hope  through  Beauty,  by  love 
through  Goodness.  Capable  of  grasping  what  is  true 
and  good,  the  human  mind  catches  only  a  glimpse  of 
what  is  beautiful.     Truth  we  define,  as  the  schools  of 


6  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

old,  to  be  the  equation  of  the  idea  and  the  object, 
jEqiiatio  intellectus  et  rei.  We  can  express  goodness, 
after  Aristotle,  still  farther  back,  as  being  "the  end 
to  which  all  existences  tend;"  but  beauty  we  cannot 
define,  or,  rather,  philosophers  exhaust  themselves  in 
attempts  which  fail  to  become  classical.  Plato  pro- 
nounces it  to  be  the  splendour  of  the  truth  ;  according 
to  Augustine,  Beauty  is  unity,  order,  harmony.  But 
absolute  Beauty  is  precisely  the  absolute  harmony  of 
the  divine  attributes  ;  lying  so  little  within  our  cogni- 
zance that  we  fail  to  reconcile  the  liberty  of  God  with 
His  eternal  necessity,  or  His  justice  with  His  mercy. 
Thus  these  mysterious  concords  elude  whilst  they 
charm  us,  and  perfect  beauty  is  ever  longed  for  and 
never  present. 

According  to  Christianity,  man  lives  a  double  life  of 
nature  and  grace.  In  the  supernatural  order,  truth 
revealed  to  faith  forms  dogma  ;  good  embraced  by  man 
becomes  morality  ;  beauty  glanced  at  by  hoj)e  inspires 
worship  :  though  everything  seems  immovable,  yet, 
even  here,  according  to  Vincent  of  Lerins,  the  law  of 
progress  claims  obedience.  Dogma  is  changeless,  but 
faith  is  an  active  power  :  Fides  quœrens  intellectum. 
Preserving  truth,  it  meditates  and  comments  upon  it, 
and  from  the  Credo  which  a  child's  memory  may  hold 
evolves  the  Summa  of  St.  Thomas.  Precepts  are  fixed, 
but  their  practice  is  multifarious  :  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  contained  all  the  inspiration  of  Christian  love, 
but  ages  were  required  to  draw  from  it  the  monasteries, 
schools,  and  hospitals  which  civilized  and  covered 
Europe.  Worship  lastly  is  unchangeable  in  its  funda- 
mental idea  of  sacrifice  :  and  a  little  bread  and  wine 
sufficed  for  the  Martyr's  liturgy  in  the  dungeon,  but 


OF  PKOGBESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.       7 

untiring  hope  inspires  man  to  draw  nearer  to  that 
Divine  beauty  which  cannot  be  gazed  on  face  to  face  on 
earth — it  brings  in  aid  everything  which  seems  to  point 
to  heaven,  as  flowers,  fire,  or  incense  ;  gives  to  stone 
its  flight,  and  causes  its  cathedral  spires  to  soar  aloft, 
whilst  it  bears  prayer  on  its  double  wings  of  poetry 
and  music,  higher  than  the  churches  or  their  towers. 
But  it  reaches  only  a  point  infinitely  below  its  aspira- 
tion, and  thence  springs  the  melancholy  which  is 
breathed  forth  from  the  hymns  of  our  great  festivals  ; 
therefore  the  devout  man  feels  the  weariness  of  the 
world  stealing  upon  him  at  the  end  of  our  sacred  rites, 
and  says  with  St.  Paul,  Cup'io  dissolvi,  "  I  desire  to  be 
dissolved  and  be  with  Christ,"  the  constant  cry  of  the 
soul  which  pines  for  a  larger  sphere  ;  whilst  Christian- 
ity represents  her  saints  advancing  from  light  to  light, 
and  the  bliss  of  the  life  to  come  as  an  eternal  progress. 
The  supernatural  order  rules,  enlightens,  and  fer- 
tilizes the  order  of  nature.  Philosophy  is  nourished 
by  dogma  ;  the  laws  of  religion  afibrd  a  basis  to  political 
institutions,  and  worship  produces  architects  and  poets; 
yet  the  natural  order,  although  subordinate,  remains 
distinct,  with  reason,  however  insufficient,  as  a  light 
peculiar  to  itself,  manifesting  truth,  beauty,  and  good- 
ness in  social  organization,  and  through  the  arts. 
Science  begins  in  faith  and  finds  therein  her  principle 
of  progress,  for  there  is  a  natural  faith  which  is  the 
very  foundation  of  reason,  and  gives  science  a  group  of 
undemonstrable  truths  as  a  point  of  departure.  Faith 
is  necessary  to  science,  and  Descartes,  wishing  to  re- 
build the  edifice  of  human  knowledge,  allowed  himself 
the  single  certitude,  Cogito  ergo  sum.  At  the  same 
time  faith  starts  science   on    a   boundless  course   by 


8  CIVILIZATION   IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

giving  it  the  idea  of  the  infinite,  from  which  pitiless 
and  tormenting  thought,  the  human  mind,  condemned 
to  despise  that  it  knows,  to  rush  with  passion  into 
the  unknown,  will  never  be  delivered  until,  arrived  at 
the  end  of  Nature,  it  finds  God.  In  the  second  place, 
love  becomes  the  principle  of  progress  in  social  in- 
stitutions. This  order  rests  on  two  virtues,  justice 
and  charity  ;  but  justice  involves  love  as  necessary 
to  that  recognition  of  the  right  of  another  which 
narrows  our  own  right  and  restrains  our  freedom 
of  action.  And  justice  has  its  limits,  but  charity  has 
none  :  pressed  by  the  command  to  do  to  others  the 
good  desired  for  one's  self,  which  is  infinite,  the  lover  of 
mankind  will  never  feel  that  he  has  done  enough  for 
his  fellows  till  he  has  spent  his  life  in  sacrifice,  and 
died,  declaring,  "  I  am  an  unprofitable  servant."  Lastly, 
hope  is  the  principle  of  progress  in  art.  We  know 
how  perfect  beauty  flies  at  the  pursuit  of  the  human 
imagination,  and  no  one  has  explained  more  vividly 
than  St.  Augustine  the  agony  of  the  soul  before  that 
eternal  flight  of  the  eternally  desired  ideal. 

"  For  my  own  part,  my  expression  nearly  always  dis- 
pleases mo,  for  I  long  for  the  better  one  which  in 
thought  I  believe  that  I  possess  ;  the  idea  illumines  my 
mind  with  the  rapidity  of  the  lightning  flash,  but  not 
so  language  :  it  is  slow  and  halting,  and  whilst  it  is 
unfolding  itself,  thought  has  retired  into  its  mysterious 
obscurity."* 

His  complaint  is  common  to  all   who    seek   for   a 

beauty  they  have  imaged,  and  are  high-souled  enough 

to  confess  that  they  have  never  found  ;  it  was  that  of 

the  dying  Virgil  bequeathing  his  "  iEncid  "  to  the  flames, 

*  St.  Augustine,  De  Erudicndis  Rudibus. 


OF  PROGEESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.      9 

of  Tasso  inconsolable  over  the  defects  of  liis  "  Jeru- 
salem ;  "  but  still  hope,  stronger  than  the  acknowledged 
impotence  of  these  mighty  minds,  regains  a  hold  on 
their  successors,  and  brings  them  back  to  the  inter- 
rupted task  ;  she  inspires  the  generations  of  architects 
and  painters  who  build  after  the  Parthenon,  the  Coli- 
seum, and  Notre  Dame  de  Paris  have  been  reared,  or 
paint  Christs  and  Madonnas  before  time  has  eifaced 
the  colours  of  Giotto  and  Raphael,  or  those  still  more 
hardy  poets  who  dare  to  advance  upon  a  world  that  yet 
rings  with  the  measures  of  Homer  or  of  Virgil.  It  is 
true  that  such  inimitable  examples  trouble  them  at  the 
outset,  making  them  hesitate  like  Dante  at  the  threshold 
of  his  poetic  pilgrimage  to  Hell  ;  but  hope  drives  them 
on,  and  if  more  than  once  on  his  shadou'y  course  the 
poet  feels  his  knees  tremble  and  his  heart  quail,  hope 
revives  him,  and  pointing  to  Beatrice,  his  ideal  smiling 
upon  him  from  on  high,  forces  his  steps  to  their  goal. 
If  it  is  thus  that  Christian  philosophy  understands  the 
law  of  progress,  the  question  remains  whether  it  is  a 
moral  or  necessary  law,  whether  it  bears  resistance  or 
demands  obedience  ?  History  seems  to  answer  that  it 
is  necessary  and  perforce  obeyed,  less  visibly  so  in 
times  of  heathenism,  when  darkened  dogma  lent  but 
a  feeble  light  to  the  progress  of  the  mind,  but  dis- 
tinctly when  Christianity  had  placed  religious  certainty 
like  a  pillar  of  fire  at  the  vanguard  of  humanity. 

The  course  of  ages  affords  no  grander  spectacle  than 
that  of  mankind  taking  nature  in  possession  through 
science  ;  it  has  been  traced  by  M.  von  Humboldt  with 
an  inspired  hand,  albeit  with  that  of  a  septuagenarian, 
— and  we  may  add  two  features,  namely,  that  man,  in 
gaining  creation,  is  reducing  into  possession  both  him- 

1  f 


10  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

self  and  his  God.  We  behold  the  Egyptian  race  con- 
tracted at  first  in  the  Nile  valley,  the  desert  on  either 
side  setting  its  limit  to  their  habitable  world  ;  then 
raising  their  eyes  to  those  stars  whose  revolutions 
brought  back  the  overflow  of  the  sacred  stream,  they 
marvelled  at  their  ordered  courses,  counted  them,  noted 
their  rising  and  setting,  till  the  ignorant  people  bound 
to  a  corner  of  the  earth  gained  knowledge  of  the  sky. 
The  Phœnicians  appeared,  armed  with  astronomy  and 
calculation,  braved  not  only  the  seas  which  washed 
their  shores,  but  the  Atlantic  to  the  Irish  coasts,  whence 
their  ships  brought  tin,  and  the  world  opened  to  their 
mariners  her  "Western  side.  Greece  again  turned  her 
mind  to  the  East,  whence  danger  had  come  to  her  with 
Darius  and  Xerxes — where  Alexander,  that  bold  youth, 
or  rather  faithful  servant  of  civilization,  was  to  find 
empire  and  double  in  a  few  years  the  Grecian  world  : 
but  her  Aristotle  was  to  carve  out  for  her  a  vaster  and 
more  lasting  dominion,  by  laying  hands  on  the  invisible 
as  well  as  the  visible,  and  by  giving  laws  alike  to 
Nature  and  to  Thought.  Sages  in  many  generations 
continued  his  work  ;  Eratosthenes  measured  the  earth  ; 
Hipparchus  mapped  out  the  heavens  ;  humanity  became 
self-regarding — philosophers  studied  man  in  his  essence, 
historians  in  his  deeds.  Herodotus  affixed  to  his  tale 
of  the  Median  wars  the  history  of  Egypt  and  of  Persia, 
and  Diodorus  Siculus  pushed  his  research  to  the  re- 
motest nations  of  the  north.  Eome  added  little  indeed 
to  these  discoveries,  but  she  traversed  the  known  world 
throughout,  pierced  roads  over  it,  rendered  it  available 
to  men,  Pervius  orhis  ;  the  nations  approached — in- 
capable of  mutual  love,  circumstance  compelled  them 
to  mutual  knowledge,  and  in  the  "  Germania"  of  Tacitus 


OF  PROGRESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.     11 

was  wi'itten  the  history  of  the  future.  That  ancient 
science  had  only  an  imperfect  knowledge  of  God  ;  Plato, 
who  made  the  nearest  approach  to  the  Father  of  all 
things,  did  not  conceive  Him  to  be  a  Sole,  Free,  or 
Creating  Power,  but  opposed  to  Him  an  Eternal  Matter. 
Paganism  threw  a  shadow  likewise  over  nature  and 
humanity  ;  as  the  majority  of  minds  shrank  from  ex- 
ploring the  secrets  of  a  physical  world  peopled  by  their 
imagination  with  jealous  divinities,  so  historians  could 
do  little  justice  to  races  sprung  fi-om  hostile  gods, 
destined  some  to  rule,  others  to  obey.  Progress  would 
have  stopped  had  not  Christianity  appeared  to  chase 
away  the  superstitious  awe  which  environed  nature,  and 
restore  mankind  to  itself  in  unity  of  origin  and  of 
destiny. 

With  Christianity  appeared  conquerors  destined  to 
leave  the  Eagles  of  Kome  in  their  rear.  In  the  seventh 
century  Byzantine  monks  buried  themselves  in  the 
steppes  of  Central  Asia,  and  crossed  the  great  wall  of 
China.  Six  centuries  later  monks  also  carried  Papal 
mandates  to  the  Khan  of  Tartary,  and  showed  to 
Genoese  and  Venetian  merchants  the  road  to  Pekin. 
Following  on  their  track,  Marco  Polo  traversed  the 
Celestial  Empire,  and  preceded  by  two  centuries  the 
Portuguese  mariners  to  the  isles  of  Sunda.  In  another 
region,  Irish  monks,  impelled  by  the  missionary  fervour 
that  burnt  in  their  cloisters,  ventured  upon  the  Western 
Ocean,  touched  in  795  the  frozen  shores  of  Iceland,  and, 
pursuing  their  pilgiimage  towards  the  unknown  land, 
were  cast  by  the  wind  on  the  coast  of  America.  When  in 
the  eleventh  century  the  Norsemen  landed  in  Greenland, 
they  learned  from  the  Esquimaux  that  to  the  south  of 
their  country,  beyond  the  bay  of  Chesapeake,  "white 


12  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

men  miglit  be  seen  clothed  in  long  white  robes,  who 
marched  singing  and  bearing  banners."  And  yet  those 
cloisters,  whence  issued  the  explorers  of  the  globe,  were 
devoted  to  divine  culture,  and  gave  birth  to  the  scho- 
lastic theology  which,  starting  from  the  idea  of  God, 
spread  over  the  individual  and  society  a  light  unknown 
to  antiquity,  so  that  those  controversies,  so  often  charged 
with  over- subtlety,  held  minds  in  suspense  for  five  hun- 
dred years,  and  were  the  discipline  of  modern  reason. 

The  Middle  Age  was  a  better  servant  to  the  moral 
than  the  physical  sciences  ;  yet  a  word  from  Roger  Bacon 
and  the  inexact  calculations  of  Marco  Polo  impelled 
Columbus  on  the  way  to  the  New  World  ;  his  faith  was 
the  better  part  of  his  genius — its  obstinacy  repaired  the 
error  of  his  conjectures,  and  in  reward  God  gave  him, 
as  he  said,  the  Keys  of  Ocean,  the  power  of  breaking 
the  close-riveted  fetters  of  the  sea.  An  entire  creation 
unfolded  itself  with  the  new  earth;  the  tributes  of  plants 
and  of  animals  multiplied  ;  and  when,  some  years  later, 
the  vessels  of  Magellan  effected  the  voyage  round  the 
globe,  man  found  himself  master  of  his  home.  Science, 
too,  landed  at  the  ports  of  China  and  India,  forced  their 
impenetrable  society,  brought  to  light  their  sacred 
writings,  their  epopees  and  histories,  and  the  moment 
approached  in  which  she  was  to  cause  the  hieroglyphics 
of  Thebes  and  the  inscriptions  of  Persepolis  to  speak. 

And  whilst  man  was  conquering  his  earth,  lest  he 
should  find  a  moment  of  repose  Copernicus  opened  out 
immensity  by  brealdng  up  the  factitious  heavens  of 
Ptolemy  ;  the  stars  fled  back  from  the  puny  distance 
awarded  them  by  the  calculations  of  the  old  astronomy, 
but  the  telescope  brought  them  back,  and  observation 
grouped  them  under  simpler  and  more  learned  laws. 


OF  PROGRESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.     13 

Earth  itself  seemed  to  fade  in  presence  of  those  masses 
of  heavenly  bodies  sown  like  islands  in  an  ocean  of  light. 
But  man  grows  greater  in  realizing  his  nothingness, 
and  miserable  are  they  who  think  such  a  vision  is  apt 
to  estrange  him  from  God,  as  if  their  expectations  had 
been  duped,  and  they  had  hoped  to  find  Him  seated,  as 
the  ancients  fabled,  on  a  throne  of  matter  ;  for  whatever 
carries  man  away  from  the  visible  and  finite,  brings  him 
perforce  nearer  to  the  Being  pronounced  by  the  faith  to 
be  infinite  and  invisible,  and  as  in  David's  times  the 
stars  were  telling  of  the  glory  of  the  Creator,  so  to 
Kepler  and  to  Newton  they  sang  no  other  song.  If 
thus  the  law  of  progress  drags  all  human  intelligence 
in  its  train,  society  cannot  remain  unmoved.  In  the 
great  empires  of  the  East,  where  an  all-powerful  autho- 
rity crushed  the  mil,  there  could  be  no  progress  because 
there  was  no  contest.  Liberty  called  the  nations  of 
Ionian  Greece  to  action,  made  and  unmade  potentates 
as  unsteady  as  the  gods  of  Olympus  ;  but  there  also 
progress  had  little  power,  because  the  principle  of  order 
was  wanting.  The  two  necessary  constituents  were 
confronted  in  Kome  ;  one  strong  in  the  majesty  of  the 
patrician  order,  the  other  energizing  in  plebeian  perse- 
verance, they  were  bound  to  meet  in  conflict  :  but  the 
struggle  was  ordered  by  rule,  and  from  it  proceeded 
that  Roman  law  which  was  the  greatest  effort  of  anti- 
quity to  realize  on  earth  the  idea  of  justice.  But  ad- 
mirable as  its  system  was  for  regulating  contracts,  it 
was  ill  at  ease  in  dealing  with  persons.  It  sanctioned 
slavery  ;  and  without  speaking  of  the  state  of  the  wife 
and  child,  mere  domestic  chattels  whom  the  family- 
father  could  slay  or  sell,  established — such  was  its  idea 
of  justice — a  class  of  men  without  God,  or  family,  or 


14  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTUEY. 

law,  or  duty,  or  conscience.  Cicero  mentioned  the  word 
cliarity  {cayltas),  but,  far  from  its  reality,  dared  not  con- 
demn the  gladiatorial  conflicts.  Pliny  the  Younger  openly 
praised  them,  and  Trajan,  best  of  Roman  princes,  gave  an 
hundred  and  twenty-three  holidays,  on  which  ten  thou- 
sand combatants  slaughtered  each  other  for  the  pastime 
of  the  world's  most  polished  race.  We,  in  fact,  dare  not 
thoroughly  realize  all  the  horrors  of  that  pagan  society 
which  mingled  with  the  most  refined  mental  pleasures 
the  deepest  glut  of  blood  and  lust. 

It  was  the  task  of  Christianity  to  revive  in  souls,  and 
infuse  into  institutions,  two  sentiments  without  which 
neither  charity  nor  justice  can  exist — respect  for  liberty 
and  for  human  life.  Not  at  one  blow,  but  little  by  little, 
the  Gospel  reconquered  freedom  for  man.  It  destroyed 
the  very  standing  ground  of  slavery  by  giving  the  slave 
the  conscience  which  made  him  no  longer  a  thing  but 
a  person,  and  endowed  him  with  duties  and  rights, 
while  following  centuries  worked  out  its  ruin  by  the 
favour  shown  to  enfranchisement,  and  the  transformation 
of  personal  servitude  into  villenage,  till  a  constitution  of 
Pope  Alexander  III.  declared  slavery  no  longer  existent 
in  the  Christian  society.  Lapse  of  time,  as  well  as 
genius  and  courage,  were  also  wanted  to  re-establish 
respect  for  life.  Christianity  might  have  thought  its 
labour  half  achieved  when  the  laws  of  its  emperors 
punished  the  murder  of  new-born  infants,  and  sup- 
pressed gladiatorial  shows  ;  but  then  the  barbarians  bore 
down  from  their  forests  their  twin-craving  for  gold  and 
carnage — people  armed  itself  against  people,  city  against 
city,  castle  against  castle,  and  the  distracted  Church 
was  forced  to  throw  herself  between  the  combatants, 
protesting  her  hatred  of  blood,  ecclesla  ahhorret  a  san- 


OF  PROGRESS  IN  THE  AGES  OP  DECLINE.     15 

guine,  while  the  barbarous  instinct  still  burst  forth  amid 
crusades,  and  ran  riot  at  the  Sicilian  Vespers.  Such 
were  the  forces  she  had  to  contend  with  to  prevent 
slaughter  ;  and  it  was  her  work  also  to  preserve  life,  to 
cherish  the  exposed  infant,  the  useless  and  infirm 
burdens  rejected  by  faithless  society,  but  held  in  honour 
by  Christianity.  It  seemed  still  harder  to  keep  alive 
progress  in  Art  ;  for  what  could  be  achieved  after  the 
ancients,  or  how  could  simplicity  and  grandeur  be 
pushed  beyond  the  limits  they  had  reached  ?  Yet  such 
beauty,  if  inimitable,  is  also  inspiring,  and  leaves  in  the 
soul  a  desire,  a  passion  of  reproduction.  Although  the 
human  mind  could  never  surpass  the  works  of  antiquity, 
it  could  add  monument  to  monument,  and  increase  the 
adornment  of  its  earthly  abiding  place.  Beneath  the 
Rome  of  the  Ctesars,  of  marble  and  gold — become,  as 
Virgil  says,  the  most  beautiful  of  objects — was  dug  the 
subterranean  city  of  the  Christians  ;  and  the  chapels 
hollowed  out  in  these  vaults  by  obscure  and  tardy  pro- 
gress were  one  day  to  pierce  the  earth,  soar  higher  than 
the  temples  and  theatres  of  Paganism,  and  in  St.  Peter's 
and  St.  Mary  Major  give  to  the  ruins  of  Forum  and 
Coliseum  a  living  beauty.  And  yet  if  the  ancient  art 
possessed  a  special  power  of  rendering  the  finite  and 
visible  with  purity  of  form,  calm  of  attitude,  and  truth 
of  movement,  it  had  not  the  gift  of  reproducing  what 
was  infinite  and  invisible.  Who  but  admires  the  bas- 
reliefs  with  which  Phidias  adorned  the  frieze  of  the  Par- 
thenon— their  simplicity  of  gesture,  their  vigour  and 
grace  of  form  ;  and  yet  in  the  quarrels  of  the  Lapithse 
and  Centaurs,  we  wonder  at  the  calm  on  the  features  of 
the  combatants,  slaying  without  passion  or  d}ing  with- 
out despair,  as  if  art  was  straining  to  express  some 


16  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTURY. 

heroic  ideal,  inaccessible  to  human  feeling.  A  contem- 
porary witness,  however,  undeceives  us  by  betraying  the 
impotence  of  that  Grecian  art,  which  could  give  to  stone 
life  but  not  expression.  Xenophon  has  shown  us 
Socrates  loving  to  visit  artists,  and  aid  them  with  his 
advice,  and  how  one  day,  on  a  visit  to  the  painter  Parr- 
hasius,  the  following  conversation  took  place  : — 

Socrates. — "  Is  not  painting  the  art  of  reproducing 
what  one  sees  ?  You  imitate  with  colour  the  depths 
and  heights,  light  and  shadow,  softness  and  hardness, 
culture  and  rudeness,  freshness  and  decay;  but,  still, 
that  which  is  the  most  lovable,  which  most  wins  our 
confidence  and  kindles  our  longings,  dost  thou  copy 
that,  or  must  we  look  upon  it  as  inimitable  ?  " 

Parrhasius. — "  How  can  it  be  represented,  since  it 
has  neither  proportion  nor  colour,  and  cannot,  in  short, 
be  grasped  by  vision  ?  " 

Socrates. — "But  does  not  one  mark  in  the  expres- 
sion now  friendship,  now  dislike  ?  " 

Parrhasius. — "  Doubtless  one  does  so." 

Socrates. — "  Surely,  then,  such  passions  should  be 
shown  in  the  expression  of  the  eye,  for  pride,  modesty, 
prudence,  vivacity,  meanness,  all  manifest  themselves 
in  the  face,  as  in  the  gait,  attitude,  or  gesture." 

The  same  Christian  presentiment  which  revealed  to 
Socrates  the  nothingness  of  the  false  gods,  and  the  per- 
versity of  the  heathen  morality,  laid  bare  the  want  in 
Greek  art.  Christianity  gave  to  the  meanest  of  its 
faithful  the  sense  of  things  which  could  not  be  seen 
nor  measured  ;  and  the  labourer  of  the  Catacombs, 
adorning,  in  the  lantern's  flicker,  and  under  the  dread 
of  persecution,  the  tombs  of  the  martyrs,  represented 
Christ,    the   Virgin,    the   Apostles,    or    Christians   at 


OF   PROGRESS    IN    THE    AGES    OF    DECLINE.  17 

prayer,  with  rude  execution  and  faulty  proportion,  but 
with  the  light  of  heaven  in  their  eyes.  A  conscious- 
ness of  eternity  animated  these  paintings  ;  it  passed 
into  the  frescoes  which  in  the  barbarous  epoch  adorned 
the  churches  of  Rome  and  Ravenna,  so  that  the  whole 
progress  of  Italian  painting  from  the  thirteenth  to  the 
fifteenth  centuries  was  absorbed  in  kindling  Christian 
beauty  of  expression  beneath  the  surface  loveliness  of 
the  ancient  forms. 

Thirdly,  classic  art  bore  a  character  of  unity.  One 
sole  form  of  civilization,  the  Graeco-Latin,  was  known 
to  antiquity,  and  beyond  its  light  there  was  nothing 
but  barbarism.  Cultured  society  glutted  itself  with 
that  very  barbarism  in  the  form  of  slaves  unable  to 
participate  in  its  mental  delights.  Art  was  but  the 
pleasure  of  a  minority.  Whilst  the  wealthy  Roman, 
retained  by  ofi&cial  duty  at  York  or  at  Seleucia,  had 
Propertius  and  Virgil  read  aloud  to  him  under  a  por- 
tico which  recalled  his  mother  city,  the  Briton  or  Par- 
thian was  profoundly  ignorant  of  his  master's  favourite 
authors.  Christianity  shed  its  inspiration  over  every 
nation  which  received  it  ;  revived  the  old  idioms  of 
the  East,  and  enriched  them  with  the  beauties  of  her 
Greek,  Syrian,  Coptic,  or  Armenian  liturgies  ;  it  burst 
forth  in  the  Western  languages,  flowing  as  in  five 
mighty  rivers  through  the  literature  of  Italy,  France, 
Spain,  Germany,  and  England.  And  thus  two  ad- 
vantages accrued  to  the  modern  world  :  on  the  one 
hand,  beauty,  preserving  its  one  type,  found  new  and 
infinite  manifestations  in  the  genius,  passion,  and  lan- 
guage of  so  many  different  races  ;  on  the  other,  mental 
pleasures  were  diffused,  and  art  achieved  its  aim  of 
educating  not  a  few  but  the  many,  of  delighting  not 


18  CIVILIZATION   IN  FIFTH   CENTURY. 

the  liappy  but  the  toilworn  and  suffering,  and  so 
shedding,  as  it  were,  a  heavenly  light  on  the  intoler- 
able weariness  of  life. 

Thus  mankind  seems  inevitably  drawn  towards  a 
perfection  never  to  be  wholly  compassed,  but  to  which 
each  succeeding  age  brings  it  nearer  :  a  necessity  which 
has  scared  many  wise  minds,  and  raised  two  objections 
against  the  doctrine  of  progress.  Some  repel  it  for  its 
arrogance  in  supposing  the  men  of  each  generation 
better  than  their  forefathers,  and  thus  bringing  j)ast 
time  and  tradition  into  contempt  ;  others,  as  tending 
to  fatalism,  for  if  the  last  age  must  be  best,  as  there 
are  some  in  which  virtue  and  genius  were  certainly 
darkened,  progress  is  reduced  to  the  simple  uninter- 
rupted increase  of  material  benefit.  But  these  difl&cul- 
ties  vanish  before  the  distinction  between  man  the 
individual  and  mankind.  God  did  not  create  mankind 
without  an  eternal  plan,  which,  being  sustained  by  His 
Infinite  Power,  cannot  remain  void  of  effect.  The  will 
which  moves  the  stars  rules  also  the  march  of  civiliza- 
tion ;  humanity  accomplishes  its  necessary  destiny, 
but,  being  composed  of  free  persons,  with  an  element 
of  liberty,  so  that  error  and  crime  find  their  place  in 
its  course,  and  we  behold  centuries  which  do  not 
advance,  but  even  recede — days  of  illness,  and  years 
of  wandering.  Who  can  say  that  the  wretched  carvings 
which  degrade  the  Arch  of  Constantino  excel  the  metopes 
of  the  Parthenon?  or  that  the  France  of  Charles  VI. 
was  more  powerful  than  that  of  Philip  Augustus  or 
St.  Louis?  We  may  go  farther,  and  pronounce  the 
fourteenth  century  with  its  Hundred  Years'  War,  the  six- 
teenth with  its  anarchy  in  the  conscience  and  absolutism 
on  the  throne,  the  eighteenth  with  its  license  of  mind 


OF   PROGBESS   IN    THE    AGES   OF   DECLINE.  19 

and  morals,  frenzies  of  modern  society — some  recovery 
of  whicli  was  seen  in  the  wondrous  outbreak  of  1789, 
which,  although  turned  from  its  proper  course,  brought 
back  the  nations  to  the  Christian  tradition  of  public 
right.  In  such  times  of  disorder,  God  leaves  individuals 
masters  of  their  actions,  but,  keeping  His  hand  on 
society,  suifers  it  not  to  collapse,  but  waits  till,  arrived 
at  a  certain  point,  it  can  be  brought  back,  as  by  a 
by-path,  in  darkness  and  pain,  to  the  perfection  of 
which  it  had  been  forgetful.  So  mankind  never  entirely 
and  irremediably  errs  ;  the  light  burns  somewhere  which 
is  to  go  to  the  front  of  the  straying  generation  and 
bring  it  along  in  its  wake.  When  the  Gospel  failed 
in  the  East,  it  dawned  on  the  races  of  the  North;  and 
when  the  schools  of  Italy  closed  before  the  Lombard  inva- 
sion, the  literary  passion  was  kindled  in  the  depths  of 
Irish  monasteries.  Sometimes  progress,  interrupted  in 
politics,  finds  scope  in  art  ;  and  wearied  art  commits  to 
science  the  guidance  of  the  human  intellect.  If,  as 
under  Lous  XIV.,  public  spirit  is  silent,  the  voices  of 
orators  and  poets  attest  that  thought  is  not  rocked  to 
sleep.  If,  in  our  own  age,  eloquence  and  poetry  seem 
to  have  fallen  from  the  height  to  which  the  seventeenth 
century  had  borne  them,  scientific  genius  has  mounted 
no  less  high,  and  the  times  of  Ampère,  Cuvier,  and 
Humboldt  are  not  open  to  the  charge  of  stagnation. 

But  while  humanity  works  out  its  inevitable  destiny, 
the  indi^-idual  remains  free,  able  to  resist  the  cogent 
but  not  necessary  law  of  progress,  the  interior  impulse 
or  the  example  of  society,  which  draws  him  to  a  higher 
aim.  And  two  qualities  there  are,  namely,  inspiration 
and  virtue,  which  are  personal,  and  do  not  yield  to  the 
direction  of  a   period.     The   "Divine   Comedy"   sur- 


20  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTURY. 

passed  the  "Iliad"  by  all  the  superiority  of  the 
Christian  faith  ;  but  Dante  was  not  more  inspired  than 
Homer.  Leibnitz  knew  infinitely  more  than  Aristotle, 
but  was  his  thought  more  intense  ?  The  heroism  of 
the  early  Christians  was  not  surpassed  by  that  of  the 
missioners  of  the  barbarous  epoch,  and  these  again 
have  found  rivals  in  those  intrepid  priests  of  our  day 
who  court  martyrdom  in  the  public  places  of  Tonquin 
or  the  Corea.  The  great  souls  of  the  Middle  Age, 
St.  Louis,  St.  Francis,  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  loved  God 
and  man  with  as  much  passion,  and  served  justice 
and  truth  with  as  much  perseverance,  as  the  noblest 
characters  of  the  seventeenth  century.  Time,  or  increas- 
ing light  and  softening  manners,  only  brings  knowledge 
within  reach,  makes  virtue  of  easier  attainment,  and 
adds  to  the  debt  of  gratitude  which  accrues  to  us  with 
the  heritage  of  our  forefathers  ;  and  thus  the  doctrine 
which  is  accused  of  despising  the  past,  brings  all  the 
future,  as  it  were,  forth  from  its  recesses,  recognizes  no 
progress  for  new  ages  without  the  tradition  of  those 
which  went  before,  and  destroys  also  both  arrogance 
and  fatalism,  in  seeing  in  the  march  of  progress  the 
history  not  of  man  alone,  but  of  God,  respecting  man's 
liberty,  working  out  His  purpose  by  man's  free  hands, 
unrecognized  by  His  creatures,  and  often  in  spite  of 
their  plans. 

So  far  is  such  a  view  from  favouring  Materialism, 
that  it  has  rallied  round  it  the  greatest  Christian 
spiritualists,  such  as  Chateaubriand  and  Ballanche,  to 
speak  of  the  dead,  and  M.  do  Bonald,  who  recognizes 
"  in  these  very  revolutions,  these  scandals  of  the  world, 
the  means  in  the  hands  of  the  Supreme  Governor  of 
bringing  to  perfection  the  constitution  of  society."   We 


OF    PROGKESS    IN    THE    AGES    OF    DECLINE.  21 

might  rather  incur  the  reproach  of  pushing  our  respect 
for  spirit  to  the  neglect  of  matter,  of  forgetting  the 
useful  beneath  the  true,  the  good,  and  the  beautiful, 
and  in  our  consideration  of  science,  social  institutions, 
and  the  arts,  passing  over  the  industry  which  is  so 
dear  to  our  contemporaries.  For  industry  must  not 
be  despised,  when,  in  subordination  to  higher  things, 
it  brings  light  to  the  study  of  nature,  inspires  public 
good,  and  corrects  the  grossness  of  matter  by  purity  of 
form.  When  science,  art,  and  public  spirit  throw  thus 
upon  industry  their  triple  ray,  it  becomes  instinct  with 
life,  and  is  of  true  service  to  mental  progress — a  sight 
afforded  by  those  Italian  republics  which  were  as 
resolved  to  compass  immortality  as  to  amass  wealth, 
as  bold  in  their  monuments  as  in  their  navigation. 
But  if  the  development  of  the  industrial  principle 
overwhelms  and  arrests  instead  of  humbly  waiting 
upon  intellectual  progress,  society  is  degraded,  and 
falls  for  a  season  into  the  way  of  decline. 

We  have  hitherto  treated  of  progress  with  facility 
by  choosing  those  great  historical  spaces  in  which  it 
is  easy  to  select  events,  and  group  them  at  will.  We 
must  now  reduce  ourselves  to  a  narrower  sphere,  and 
treat  of  an  epoch  which  seems  entirely  to  militate 
against  our  theory — the  period  from  the  fall  of  the 
Western  Empire  to  the  end  of  the  thirteenth  century, 
the  moment  which  it  is  customary  to  hail  as  the 
reawakening  of  the  human  mind.  Had  only  one  good 
principle  been  implanted  in  man,  progress  would  have 
been  but  its  calm  and  regular  development  ;  but  as 
there  are  two  principles  in  him,  perfection  and  corrup- 
tion, corresponding  to  civilization  and  barbarism  in 
society,  progress  becomes  a  struggle  with  consequent 


22  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

alternations  of  victory  and  defeat.     Every  great  era  of 

liistory  takes  its   departure  from  ruin,  and  ends  in  a 

conquest.     The  first  period  upon  wliicli  we  enter  opens 

with   the   most   stupendous  of   all  catastrophes,  that 

of  the   Roman  Empire.     We  can  hardly  realize  the 

majesty  of  that  dominion  which  secured  by  its  laws 

the  peace  of  the  world,  by  its  schools  the  education 

of  the  nations,  and  adorned  its  provinces  by  covering 

them  with  a   crowd   of  roads,  aqueducts,  and  cities. 

Doubtless   Roman   avarice  and   cruelty   caused   these 

benefits  to   be  dearly  purchased,  but  the  opinion  the 

prostrate  races  had  formed  of  their  ruler  was  so  high 

that  the  crash  of  her  fall  struck  terror  into  the  hearts, 

not  only  of  consulars  in  the  peaceful  seclusion  of  their 

villas,  or  of  philosophers  and  literati  fascinated  by  a 

civilization  to  which  the  human  mind  had  devoted  all  its 

light,  but  even  to  the  Christians  and  the  very  recluses 

of  the  Desert.  They  were  forced  to  expect  the  approach 

of  the  day  of  doom  in  witnessing  the  fall  of  an  order 

which  alone,   according  to  Tertullian,  warded  off  the 

consummation  of  time.     At  the  news  of  that  night  of 

fear,  in  which  Alaric  entered  Rome  with  fire  and  sword, 

St.  Jerome  shuddered  in  the  depth  of  his  Bethlehem 

solitude,  and  exclaimed,  "A  terrible,  rumour  reaches 

us  from  the  West,  telling  of  Rome  besieged,  bought 

for  gold,  besieged  again,  life  and   property  perishing 

together  ;    my  voice   falters,   sobs    stifle   the  words   I 

dictate,  for  she  is  a  captive,  that  City  which  enthralled 

the  world." 

Quia  cladem  illius  noctis,  qnis  fnnora  fnndo 
Explicct.  aut  possit  lacrymis  a^quare  dolorein  ? 

But  the  catastrophe  which  terrified  the  whole  world 
afforded  no  astonishment  to  St.  Augustine.     Whether 


OF   PROGKESS   IN   THE    AGES   OF    DECLEsfE.  23 

bis  great  genius  was  less  bound  by  an  antique 
pati'iotism,  or  wbetber  love  bad  raised  it  to  calmer 
beigbts,  be  was  able  to  measure  witb  a  firmer  glance 
tbe  portentous  events  around  bim.  Amidst  tbe  pagan 
fury  wbicb  cbarged  upon  tbe  Cburcb  tbe  disasters  of 
tbe  Empire,  be  wrote  bis  "  City  of  God,"  in  wbicb, 
deducinj?  from  tbe  oricfin  of  Time  tbe  destinies  of 
Rome  and  tbe  world,  be  marked  witb  luminous  pen 
tbe  outlines  of  tbat  Cbristian  law  of  progress  wbicb  we 
bave  feebly  sketcbed.  At  tbe  beginning,  be  wrote,  two 
principles  of  love  built  two  cities  :  tbe  love  of  self, 
in  contempt  of  God,  reared  tbe  city  of  tbe  world  ;  tbe 
love  of  God,  scorning  self,  raised  tbe  beavenly  city. 
Tbe  eartbly  republic  was  visible,  as  in  Babylon  or 
Eome,  and  was  doomed  to  perisb  ;  tbe  uneartbly  state 
was  invisible,  and  tbougb  for  a  time  confounded  witb 
tbe  worldly  commonwealtb,  could  not  sbare  in  its  ruin. 
Tbe  growtb  was  continuous,  from  tbe  patriarcbal 
family,  tbrougb  Israel,  to  tbe  Cbristian  Cburcb  ;  per- 
secution gave  it  increase,  beresy  distinctness,  torment 
fortitude  ;  its  course  on  eartb  was  as  a  week  of  labour  ; 
its  Sabbatb  was  to  be  spent  in  Heaven,  in  no  sterile 
and  dreamy  repose,  but  in  tbe  everlasting  energy  of 
a  loving  intelligence.  Tbe  sequel  justified  tbe  fore- 
bodings of  St.  Augustine  ;  upon  tbe  ruins  of  tbe 
vanquisbed  empire  Cbristian  civilization  arose  as  a 
conqueror,  excelling  in  its  deptb,  and  tbe  difiiculty  and 
scope  of  its  task,  all  tbe  conquests  of  old. 

Cbristianity  firstly  took  for  ber  object  tbe  conquest 
of  tbe  conscience  ;  and  of  tbis  Rome  bad  never  dreamed. 
In  laying  tbe  bands  of  ber  legions  on  subject  provinces, 
and  tbat  of  ber  proconsuls  on  tbeir  populations,  sbe 
bad  never  troubled  berself  witb  souls  and  tbeir  immortal 


24  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

destinies.      She   disciplined   the    barbarians,  and   did 

better  service  by  instructing  them,  but  never  thought 

of  converting  them  ;  her  Paganism  made  conscience 

a  slave   to  deified   passions,  and  conversion  involved 

the  government  of  carnal  impulse  by  a  purified  reason. 

But  Christianity  held  for  nothing  the  mere  possession 

of  soil,   and  the  enforced  submission  of  nations  ;    it 

claimed  dominion  over  the  intellect  and  the  will,  and 

announced   to   brutalized  minds,  which  knew  only  of 

murderous  and   lustful  divinities,  a  spiritual  dogma  ; 

to  men  of  violence  it  had  to  give  a  law  of  mercy  and 

pardon  ;  to  immolators  of  human  victims  to  propose 

a   worship    comprised    in    prayer,   preaching,    and    a 

bloodless    oblation.     Nor    did    the    novelty  of    these 

doctrines  touch  hearts  perforce,  neither  could  the  subtle 

persuasion   of    her    priests   triumph   easily   over    the. 

ignorant;  for  we  see  Rathbod,  Duke  of  Frisia,  when, 

hesitating  under  the  arguments  of  St.  Wulfram,  he 

had   caused   the   equivalent   for   the  Walhalla  of  his 

ancestors  to  be  proposed  to  him,  declaring  that,  for 

his  part,  he  would  rather  rejoin  his  forefathers  than 

go  with  a  crowd  of  beggars  to  inhabit  the  Christian 

heaven. 

But  the  conquest  of  mind  could  be  effected  by  mind 
only,  and  force  of  arms,  far  from  serving,  could  hardly 
avoid  compromising,  the  cause,  as  was  often  the  case. 
Instruments  were  wanted  in  which  mental  power  could 
alone  appear  ;  and  by  such  feeble  and  despised  means 
as  women,  slaves,  and  the  sick,  was  the  conversion  of 
the  barbarians  accomplished.  It  was  effected  by  Clo- 
tilda among  the  Franks,  Theodolinda  among  the 
Lombards,  Patrick  was  found  working  in  Ireland, 
and,  lastly,  two  men,  absent  from  the  sphere  of  action, 


OF   PROGRESS    IN    THE    AGES    OF    DECLINE.  25 

who  put  no  foot  on  the  hostile  soil,  directed  from  the 
heart  of  Italy  the  conquest  of  the  North.  The  one, 
St.  Benedict,  in  his  desert  at  Monte  Cassino,  formed 
the  monastic  host,  and  armed  them  with  obedience  and 
toil  ;  the  spirit  with  which  he  inspired  them,  at  once 
charitable  and  sensible,  full  of  intrepidity  and  perse- 
verance, impelled  them  to  the  heart  of  Germany,  to  the 
recesses  of  Scandina^da,  where  they  cut  down  with  the 
forests  the  superstitions  which  they  enshrined.  The 
other,  St.  Gregory,  though  hardly  able,  during  his 
twelve  years'  pontificate,  to  leave  his  couch  of  suffering 
for  three  hours  each  day,  organized  the  invasion  of 
civilization  upon  barbarism,  reformed  the  Frankish 
Churches,  and  reconciled  to  Catholicism  the  Lombardic 
and  Visigothic  Arians. 

Lastly,  Rome,  with  her  admirable  sagacity,  had  been 
content  with  a  limited  empire  ;  but  the  Church,  with 
greater  confidence,  desired  a  boundless  rule.  From 
the  cliffs  of  Britain,  Roman  generals  had  discerned  and 
coveted  the  Irish  shores.  Doubtless  Probus,  when  he 
had  ravaged  Germany  up  to  the  Elbe,  dreamt  of  its 
reduction  to  a  province.  The  prudence  of  the  Senate 
had  arrested  these  schemes  of  aggrandizement,  but 
Christianity  disdained  its  counsels  of  prudvjnce.  A 
young  Gaul  named  Patricius,  kidnapped  by  Irish 
pirates,  and  sold  on  their  island,  succeeded  in  escaping, 
and  having  regained  Gaul,  buried  himself  in  the 
monastery  of  Lerins.  Some  years  later  he  appeared 
in  Ireland  as  papal  emissary,  and  in  his  turn  reduced 
his  captors  to  the  light  and  golden  yoke  of  the  Gospel. 
At  the  end  of  thirty-three  years  Ireland  was  converted, 
and  gave  to  the  Faith  a  race  capable  of  the  extremes 
of  labour  and  devotion.     The  evangelization  of  Ger- 

VOL.  I.  2 


26  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

many  cost  more  labour,  and  three  hundred  years  of 
preaching  and  martyrdom  were  wanted  to  gain  the 
old  Roman  stations  on  the  Rhine  and  the  Danube  ;  and 
then  inch  by  inch  to  grasp  Thuringia,  Franconia,  and 
Frisia.  Every  age  the  Christian  colonies  were  multi- 
plied ;  they  were  buried  in  nameless  solitudes,  to 
perish  age  by  age  under  a  wave  of  Paganism,  devoted 
alike  to  its  false  gods  and  to  national  independence. 
The  struggle  lasted  till  St.  Boniface,  after  constituting 
at  last  the  ecclesiastical  province  of  Germany,  died 
in  Frisia,  pardoning  his  barbarous  murderers.  The 
Roman  had  known  how  to  die,  and  that  had  borne  him 
on  to  the  conquest  of  half  the  world  ;  but  the  Christian 
alone  could  die  without  revenge,  and  this  power  gained 
for  him  the  whole. 

Such  being  the  progress  of  Christian  conquest  in  the 
Merovingian  period,  let  us  examine  its  results.  What 
at  once  strikes  us  in  them  is  the  fact  that  the  Church, 
though  lo\àng  the  barbarians  to  the  point  of  dying  for 
them,  and  even  by  their  hands,  did  not  detach  herself 
from  the  old  civilization,  which  she  preserved  by 
breathing  her  spirit  into  its  ruins  ;  and  in  this  again 
the  supernatural  order  sustained  the  natural  order,  and 
gave  it  life. 

Dogma  firstly  was  the  salvation  of  science.  Whereas 
the  pagan  myth  had  loved  darkness,  had  shrouded 
itself  in  mysteries  and  initiations,  and  shrunk  from 
discussion,  Christian  doctrine  loved  the  open  light, 
preached  on  the  housetops,  and  provoked  controversy. 
St.  Augustine  said,  "When  the  intelligence  has  found 
God,  it  still  goes  in  search  of  Him,"  and  added,  finally, 
"  Intellcctwm  valde  ama  " — Love  understanding  ;  and 
80,  as  revelation  stood  in  need  of  intelligence,  philo- 


OF  PEOGRESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.     27 

sophy  began  again.  It  was  oj^en  to  the  Church  to 
commit  the  writings  of  the  pagan  philosophers  to  the 
flames,  or  to  have  suffered  the  barbarians  to  destroy 
them  ;  yet  she  guarded  them,  and  set  her  monks,  as  to  a 
holy  task,  to  copy  the  writings  of  Seneca  and  of  Cicero. 
St.  Augustine  brought  Plato  into  the  schools  under  his 
bishop's  robe.  Boethius  opened  the  door  to  Aristotle 
by  translating  the  introduction  of  Porphyry,  which 
became  the  text-book  of  philosophic  teaching.  The 
Franks,  Irish,  and  Anglo-Saxons,  the  children  of 
pirates  and  ravagers  of  towns,  grew  pale  over  the 
problem  as  to  the  real  or  only  mental  existence  of 
genus  and  species,  the  question  which  carried  in 
embryo  the  whole  quarrel  between  Realists  and  Nomi- 
nalists, the  Scholasticism  of  the  Middle  Age,  and,  to 
speak  more  exactly,  the  philosophy  of  all  time. 

Secondly,  the  religious  law  saved  social  institutions  : 
it  was  a  Christian  opinion  that  God  had  let  a  reflex  of 
His  justice  shine  out  in  Roman  law,  which  was  also 
believed  to  present  a  marvellous  agreement  with  the 
Mosaic  institutions  ;  and  this  idea  was  the  origin  of  a 
compilation  published  towards  the  end  of  the  fifth  cen- 
tury, "  Collatio  legum  Mosaicarum  et  Romanarum." 
The  Church  preserved  Roman  law,  gathered  from  it  the 
wisest  dispositions  in  the  body  of  the  law  ecclesiastical, 
and  put  it  forth  as  the  common  law  of  the  clergy  and 
of  Roman  subjects  under  barbarian  control.  She  taught 
it  to  the  barbarians  themselves,  as  evidenced  by  the 
Lombardic,  and,  more  especially,  the  Visigothic  code. 
But  of  all  of  the  political  works  to  which  the  clergy  of 
the  time  applied  its  hand,  the  consecration  of  royalty 
was  the  greatest.  Born  in  the  forests  of  Germany, 
fenced  by  a  profoundly  heathen  tradition,  and  full  of 


28  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

bloodthirsty  instincts,  Christianity  threw  upon  it  the 
toga  of  the  Eoman  magistrate,  and  taught  it  to  rule  by 
justice  rather  than  by  force.  Later,  to  complete  its 
purification,  the  Church  restored  to  it  the  consecration 
of  the  kings  of  Israel,  desiring  to  mould  the  warrior 
chiefs  into  shepherds  of  the  people,  who  by  a  gentle 
sway  would  temper  the  reign  of  justice  with  charity. 

Thirdly,  Christian  worship  saved  art.  When  the 
religion  emerged  from  the  Catacombs  and  built  its 
churches,  its  first  model  was  the  Basilica,  the  tribunal 
of  the  magistrates — the  most  august  object  that  anti- 
quity could  show.  It  proceeded  to  cover  their  walls 
with  mosaic,  the  lines  of  which,  if  they  do  not  recall 
its  harmony  and  just  proportion,  often  rival  the  simple 
grandeur  of  Grecian  art.  The  bishops  and  civilizing 
monks  of  France  and  England  drew  to  their  side  the 
most  perfect  artists  of  Italy  to  build  basilicas  after  the 
ancient  form,  and  to  animate  them  by  fresco  and  glass- 
painting.  To  these  churches,  already  instinct  with 
life,  voice  was  to  be  given  ;  their  chants  were  to  rise 
as  one  sound,  that  the  concert  of  the  lips  might  sym- 
bolize the  union  of  souls.  Schools  of  church  music 
were  accordingly  opened,  deriving  their  form  and  rule 
from  that  of  St.  John  Lateran  ;  but  music,  the  seventh 
of  the  liberal  arts  according  to  the  ancients,  presup- 
poses the  knowledge  of  the  rest,  and  it  was  not  reached 
till  the  dusty  ways  of  the  triv'ium  and  qiiadrivium  had 
been  followed  to  their  end.  And  as  melody  could  not 
be  divorced  from  poetry,  so  the  doors  of  the  ecclesias- 
tical school  could  hardly  be  closed  on  the  poets.  Indeed 
they  had  already  effected  an  entrance,  quoted  as  they 
were  on  every  page  by  St.  Basil,  St.  Augustine,  and 
St.  Jerome.     S^me  sterner  spirits  did  try  to  stop  Virgil 


OF   PKOGRESS   IN    THE    AGES    OF   DECLINE.  29 

upon  the  threshold  ;  but  others,  more  accommodating, 
pointed  out  that  the  sweet  singer  of  Mantua  had  an- 
nounced the  advent  of  Messiah,  so  Virgil  passed  in 
with  the  Fourth  Eclogue  in  his  hands,  and  brought  all 
the  classic  poets  in  his  train. 

But  it  was  but  part  of  the  task  of  the  Church  to 
have  preserved  antiquity.  She  was  also  bound  to  col- 
lect the  fertile  elements  which  existed  in  the  chaos  of 
barbarism  ;  for  there  is  no  ignorance,  however  thick, 
which  is  not  streaked  by  some  light;  no  violence  so 
undisciplined  as  not  to  acknowledge  some  law  ;  no 
manners  so  trifling  as  not  to  be  redeemed  by  some  ray 
of  inspiration.  Christianity  developed  in  the  Germans 
that  balance  of  intellect  which  a  false  philosophy  had 
never  warped.  It  stamped  upon  their  manners  and 
hallowed  in  their  laws  the  two  fine  feelings  of  respect 
for  the  dignity  of  man  and  the  weakness  of  woman.  In 
the  warrior-songs  wherewith  this  unlettered  race  cele- 
brated the  deeds  of  their  ancestors,  there  is  more  inspi- 
ration to  be  felt  than  in  all  the  declamations  of  the 
Latin  Decline.  The  Church  shrank  from  breaking 
the  harp  of  Gaulish  bard  or  Scandinavian  scald  ;  she 
only  purified  it  by  adding  another  chord  for  the  praise 
of  God  and  of  His  saints,  and  the  family  joys  which 
Christ  had  blessed.  The  last  effort  of  the  labour 
which  steeped  the  world  of  barbarism  with  civilization, 
and  brought  from  the  barbarians  new  life  for  the  world 
of  civilization,  was  seen  in  Charlemagne. 

A  second  era  opens  upon  us  here  with  a  ruin,  and 
that  of  a  Christian  power,  and  at  first  sight  nothing 
could  seem  more  disastrous  ;  for  no  empire  has  ever 
appeared  better  founded  in  itself,  or  more  necessary  to 
society,  than  that  of  Charlemagne.     That  gi'eat  man 


30  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

had  not  received  in  vain  the  title  of  Advocate  of  the 
Church  ;  for  he  protected  her  by  his  sword  from  out- 
ward assault,  and  caused  her  canons  to  be  respected 
within  the  fold.  He  revived  the  universal  monarchy 
of  the  Caesars,  and  united  the  pacified  nations  by  his 
beneficent  policy.  The  school  was  raised  in  the  palace, 
and  the  learned  crowded  round  the  conqueror  who  had 
laid  might  under  tribute  to  mind.  But  so  grand  an 
order  was  not  destined  to  a  long  continuance,  and 
Charlemagne  himself  before  his  death  had  to  lament 
its  decay.  Thirty  years  after  his  death,  the  great 
organism  of  his  empire  broke  into  three  parts  at  the 
treaty  of  Verdun.  The  Norman  torrent  rolled  upon  it, 
rushing  up  the  Weser,  the  Rhine,  the  Seine,  and  the 
Loire  ;  the  pirate  bands  ascended  the  rivers,  sacked  the 
cloisters,  and  cast  into  the  same  fire  rich  copies  of 
the  Bible  and  manuscript  copies  of  Aristotle  and 
Virgil.  At  the  same  time  the  Hungarians,  dragging 
with  them  the  Slavonic  tribes,  invaded  Germany,  Bur- 
gundy, and  Italy.  Brothers  of  the  Huns,  they  passed 
over  Europe  like  a  tempest,  and  the  herbage,  tram- 
pled by  their  cavalry,  did  not  bud  anew.  At  sight  of 
so  much  misery,  the  world  thought  herself  lost,  and 
again  imagined  herself  to  be  touching  the  end  of 
time.  The  deacon  Floras,  at  Lyons,  sang  thus  of  the 
fears  of  his  contemporaries  : — 

"  Mountains  and  hills,  woods  and  streams,  and  ye, 
oh  deep  dales,  weep  for  the  race  of  the  Franks  !  A 
mighty  race  flourished  under  a  brilliant  dynasty. 
There  was  but  one  king,  one  nation.  Its  children 
lived  in  peace  and  its  foes  in  fear  ;  the  zeal  of  its 
bishops  was  emulous  in  giving  their  people  holy 
canons  in  frequent  councils.     Its  young  men  learnt  to 


OF  PROGRESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.     31 

know  the  holy  books  ;  the  hearts  of  its  children  drank 
deep  of  the  fount  of  learning.  Happy,  indeed,  had  it 
known  its  felicity,  was  the  empire  which  had  Rome 
for  her  citadel,  the  bearer  of  the  keys  of  heaven  for 
her  founder  ;  but  now  this  majesty  has  fallen  from  its 
lofty  height,  and  is  spurned  by  the  feet  of  all.  Ah  ! 
who  does  not  recognize  the  fulfilment  of  that  Gospel 
prophecy,  '  When  the  Son  of  Man  cometh,  think  ye 
that  He  will  find  upon  earth  a  remnant  of  His 
Faith?'  " 

But  when  all  seemed  lost,  salvation  was  imminent. 
Providence  loves  such  surprises,  and  shows  thereby  the 
power  of  its  government  and  the  impotence  of  our 
own.  Suddenly  that  very  people  who  had  seemed 
unloosed  for  the  Church's  destruction,  became  its 
regenerators  and  guardians.  The  German  invasions 
had  not  sufficiently  renovated  Roman  Europe.  The 
north-west  corner  of  France  and  the  south  of  Italy 
had  felt  too  little  that  fertilizing  influence  which  alone 
can  restore  an  exhausted  soil.  The  Normans  poured 
over  these  regions  like  a  deluge,  but  as  one  which 
brings  life.  From  the  blazing  ruins  of  the  monasteries, 
monks,  escaping  the  massacre,  went  forth,  preached  to 
the  pirates,  and  often  converted  them.  The  Normans 
entered  into  Christian  civilization,  and  brought  to  it 
their  genius  for  maritime  enterprise  ;  for  government, 
as  shown  by  the  conquest  of  England  ;  for  architec- 
ture, to  be  exhibited  in  Sicily,  in  the  gilded  basilicas  of 
Palermo  and  Monreale,  or  in  Normandy  itself,  by  the 
abbey  towers  and  spires  which  line  the  Seine  banks 
from  its  mouth  to  Paris,  and  make  it  a  fit  avenue  of 
monuments  for  a  royal  people.  A  little  later  the 
Hungarians  and  Sclaves  fell,  still  stained  with  blood, 


32  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

at  the  feet  of  St.  Adalbert,  and  the  scourges  of  God 
became  his  wiUing  and  intelhgent  servants.  They 
brought  to  the  Church  the  aid  of  their  invincible 
swords,  covered  its  Eastern  side  from  Byzantine  cor- 
ruption and  Moslem  invasion,  and  thus  at  last  assured 
the  independence  of  the  West. 

Moreover,  that  dismemberment  of  the  Empire  which 
drew  groans  from  Floras  the  deacon,  prepared  remotely 
for  the  emancipation  of  the  modern  nations.  France, 
Germany,  and  Italy  arose,  though  it  is  true  that  the 
disruption  of  the  monarchy,  when  pushed  to  an  extreme, 
ended  in  the  feudal  subdivisions.  The  vices  of  the 
feudal  system  are  well  known,  but  it  had  at  least  the 
virtue  of  attaching  men  to  the  soil  who  were  devoted  to 
a  nomad  life  and  greedy  of  adventure.  It  held  them 
by  the  double  bond  of  property  and  sovereignty.  Mere 
property  in  the  soil  would  not  alone  have  restrained 
the  descendant  of  the  barbarians,  preferring  by  far 
movable  wealth,  gold,  splendid  weapons,  and  herds  of 
cattle.  But  when  the  lord  became  at  once  proprietor 
and  sovereign,  master  alike  of  the  fief  and  of  its  in- 
habitants, his  pride  was  moved,  he  learned  to  love  his 
land  and  his  men  and  to  fight  in  their  defence.  The 
Church  saw  that  this  habit  of  drawing  the  sword  for 
others  raised  the  character,  she  recognized  in  feudal 
devotion  a  remedy  for  the  evils  of  the  system  and 
proposed  an  heroic  ideal  to  that  warlike  society  in 
chivalry,  the  armed  service  of  God  and  of  the  weak.  As 
feudalism  divided  mankind  by  the  subdivision  of  terri- 
tory and  the  inequality  of  right,  so  chivalry  united  it 
by  Ijrotherhood  in  arms  and  equality  in  duty. 

Thus  Christendom  expanded,  and  slowly  elaborated 
an  organization  compatible  with  her  great  principle. 


OF   PROGRESS   IN    THE   AGES   OF    DECLINE.  33 

But  how  could  leisure  for  thought  be  found  in  that 
age  of  iron,  and  who  was  forthcoming  to  save  the  title- 
deeds  of  the  human  intellect,  when  the  monks  had  but 
time  to  lay  the  relics  of  the  saints  on  their  shoulders 
in  their  flight  from  death  ? — for  many  a  chronicle  breaks 
off  at  the  Norman  invasion,  and  many  churches  refer  to 
that  epoch  the  loss  of  their  charters  and  of  their 
legends.  Two  islands  of  the  West  had  escaped  the 
sovereignty  of  Charlemagne — wonder  as  we  may  how 
Great  Britain  and  Ireland,  enfeebled  as  they  were  by 
intestine  war,  could  have  avoided  absorption  into  an 
empire  which  reached  from  the  mouth  of  the  Khine  to 
that  of  the  Tiber,  from  the  Elbe  to  the  Theiss.  But 
it  was  needful  that  amid  the  decay  of  the  Carlovingian 
dominion  a  less  troubled  society  should  afford  a  refuge 
to  science  and  literature,  and  during  the  eleventh 
century  the  monasteries  of  Ireland  continued  to  sup- 
port a  whole  people  of  theologians,  men  of  letters  and 
skilled  in  dialectic.  From  time  to  time  their  surplus 
population  flowed  over  on  to  the  coast  of  France,  where, 
according  to  a  contemporary,  a  troop  of  philosophers 
were  seen  to  arrive.  Amidst  the  nameless  stood  John 
Scotus  Erigena,  notorious  to  the  point  of  scandal,  bold 
to  temerity,  erudite  enough  to  revive  the  doctrines 
of  Alexandria,  but  halting  upon  the  veiy  brink  of 
Pantheism,  soon  enough  to  exercise  an  incontestable 
influence  over  the  mystics  of  the  Middle  Age.  England 
on  her  side,  watching  from  afar  the  fall  of  the  Carlo- 
vingian d}Tiasty,  inaugurated  the  reign  of  Alfred  the 
Great  ;  the  heroic  youth  reconquered  the  kingdom  of 
his  fathers,  and  with  the  hands  that  had  expelled  the 
Danes,  reopened  the  schools.  At  the  age  of  thirty- 
six  he  placed  himself  under  a  master  to  learn  Latin, 

2t 


34  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTUEY. 

translated  the  pastoral  of  St.  Gregory  for  the  use  of  the 
clergy,  the  "  Consolatio  "  of  Boethius  and  the  histories 
of  Orosius  and  Bede  for  public  instruction,  "trem- 
bling," as  he  said,  "  at  the  thought  of  the  penalties 
which  the  powerful  and  the  learned  would  incur  in 
this  world  and  the  next  if  they  have  neither  known 
how  to  taste  wisdom  themselves  nor  to  give  it  to  others 
to  enjoy." 

Whilst  these  lights  were  shining  in  the  north, 
Germany  was  also  preserving  the  sacred  fire,  in  the 
three  monasteries  of  New  Corbey,  Fulda,  and  St.  Gall. 
These  powerful  abbeys,  protected  from  the  barbarians  by 
strong  walls,  by  public  respect  against  rapacious  princes, 
embraced  schools,  libraries,  and  studios  for  copyists, 
painters,  and  sculptors.  Look  at  St.  Gall,  where  we 
may  almost  feel  a  first  breath  from  the  Revival  :  its 
inmates  are  not  confined  to  transcribing  pagan  authors 
under  obedience,  or  collecting  the  Latin  Muses  with 
troubled  and  remorseful  curiosity.  The  ancients  are  not 
merely  honoured  there,  but  loved  with  that  intelligence 
which  gives  back  to  the  past  its  life  :  its  monks  en- 
gaged in  learned  discussions,  argued  against  all  comers 
on  grammar  or  on  poetry,  and  even  gave  their  opinion 
in  Chapter  in  verses  from  the  "yEneid."  Latin  litera- 
ture hardly  sufiiced  for  the  appetite  of  these  recluses  : 
they  aspired  to  penetrate  into  Greek  antiquity,  and  did 
so  under  the  guidance  of  a  woman.  The  chronicle  of 
St.  Gall  has  preserved  the  graceful  tale,  which  in  no 
way  detracts  from  the  gravity  of  monastic  manners.  It 
relates  how  the  Princess  Hedwige,  affianced  in  her 
youth  to  the  Emjieror  of  the  East,  had  learnt  Greek. 
On  the  rupture  of  their  engagement  Hedwige  gave  her 
hand  to  a  landgrave  of  Suabia,  who   soon  left  her  a 


OF   PKOGEESS    IX    THE    AGES    OF    DECLINE.  35 

widow,  free  to  live  in  prayer  and  study.  She  took  up 
her  residence  near  the  abbey,  and  caused  herself  to 
be  instructed  by  an  old  monk  in  all  the  learning  of  the 
time.  One  day  the  old  man  was  accompanied  by  a 
young  novice,  and  on  the  landgravine  inquiring  what 
whim  had  brought  the  child,  the  latter  replied  that 
though  scarcely  a  Latin  he  wished  to  become  a  Greek — 

Esse  velim  gi-tecus  cum  ■vix  sit,  Domna,  Latinus. 

The  verse  was  bad,  but  its  author  was  pretty  and 
docile.  Hedwige  made  him  sit  at  her  feet,  and  gave 
him  as  a  first  lesson  an  anthem  from  the  Byzantine 
liturgy  ;  and  continued  her  care  for  him  till  he  under- 
stood the  language  of  St.  John  Chrysostom,  and  was 
able  to  teach  it  to  others.  By  this  noble  hand  Greek 
literature  was  restored  to  St.  Gall,  and  Hedwige, 
pleased  with  the  lessons  she  had  given  and  received, 
loaded  the  learned  abbey  with  gifts,  the  most  remark- 
able among  which  was  an  alb  of  marvellous  workman- 
ship, embroidered  with  the  nuptials  of  Mercury  and 
Philologia. 

Thus  literature  did  not  entirely  perish,  though  it 
languished  in  Italy,  Spain,  and  France,  the  Latin 
countries.  But  even  there  teaching  was  continuous, 
and  its  most  famous  inheritor  was  one  who  belonged  to 
those  three  countries  by  birth,  by  education,  and  by 
fortune,  Gerbert,  the  monk  of  Aurillac,  who  was  taught, 
not,  as  has  been  thought,  by  the  Arabs  of  Cordova,  but 
at  the  episcopal  school  of  Visch,  in  Catalonia,  and  sub- 
sequently borne  aloft  by  the  admiration  of  his  contem- 
poraries to  the  very  chair  of  St.  Peter.  His  illustrious 
name  alone  sufficiently  acquits  Southern  Europe  of  the 
charge  of  barbarism,  and  dispenses  us  from  a  mention 


36  CIVILIZATION   IN    FIFTH    CENTUKY. 

of  tlie  less  famous  workmen  who  laboured  with  silent 
perseverance  to  keep  unbroken  the  chain  of  tradition. 
Assuredly  tradition,  without  which  progress  is  impos- 
sible, must  be  guarded,  but  it  must  also  be  enlarged. 
As  antiquity  possessed  no  forms  of  sufficient  variety  or 
life  for  the  genius  of  the  new  era,  modern  languages 
were  to  arise.  Alfred,  master  of  Latin  at  the  age  of 
thirty-six,  was  at  home  at  twelve  in  the  war-songs  of 
the  Anglo-Saxons  ;  by  writing  it  in  prose  and  forcing 
it  to  translate  the  firmness  and  precision  of  ancient 
thought,  he  fixed  that  most  poetical  and  therefore  most 
indefinite  of  idioms.  The  monks  of  St.  Gall  at  the 
same  time  made  it  their  task  to  pass  into  that  Teutonic 
dialect — the  rude  accents  of  which  the  Emperor  Julian 
had  compared  to  the  cry  of  the  vulture — not  only  the 
hymns  of  the  Church  but  the  Categories  of  Aristotle, 
and  the  Encyclopaedia  of  Martianus  Capella.  Though 
the  growth  of  the  Neo-Latin  languages  was  more 
gradual,  yet  from  the  ninth  century  downwards  the 
traces  of  their  existence  were  multiplied.  The  Council 
of  Tours  prescribed  preaching  in  the  vernacular, 
and  we  have  proof  that  it  was  obeyed  in  a  recently 
discovered  homily,  the  date  of  which  cannot  be 
later  than  the  year  1000.  Its  syntax  is  barbarous, 
and  presents  a  confused  mixture  of  French  and 
Latin  words  ;  yet  from  the  chaos  in  which  this  old 
preacher  struggled  was  to  proceed  the  language  of 
Bossuet. 

The  cause  of  civilization  was  to  conquer,  but  only 
after  running  the  greatest  risk,  especially  from  the  con- 
dition of  the  Church,  then  degraded  at  Kome  by  the  ■ 
profiination  of  the  Holy  Sec,  and  invaded  in  every  part 
by  feudal  customs,  which  changed  bishoprics  into  fiefs, 


OF   PROGRESS    IN    THE    AGES    OF    DECLINE.  37 

and  bishops  into  vassals.  Salvation  was,  however,  to 
spring  from  the  Church,  and  out  of  the  quarter  in  which 
the  spiritual  life  had  sought  refuge,  for  it  was  the 
monastic  reform  of  Cluny  which  decided  the  destiny  of 
the  world.  A  French  monk  named  Odo,  a  student  of 
Paris,  had  buried  his  learning  and  his  virtues  in  a 
monastery,  situated  four  leagues  from  Macon,  in  the 
depths  of  a  silent  valley,  only  troubled  from  time  to 
time  by  the  shouts  of  hunters  and  the  baying  of  their 
hounds.  He  introduced  a  severe  rule,  which,  however, 
did  not  exclude  the  literary  passion  or  artistic  culture, 
and  which,  by  its  intrinsic  force,  brought  under  the 
government  of  Cluny  a  number  of  religious  houses  in 
France,  in  Italy,  and  in  England.  Unity  in  the 
hierarchy,  in  administration,  and  in  discipline  was 
thus  established  in  these  monasteries,  ready  to  extend 
thence  into  the  general  Christian  society  when  the  time 
arrived.  The  day  soon  came  ;  it  was  the  Christmas 
Day  of  the  year  1048.  The  Bishop  Bruno,  nominated 
by  the  Emperor  Henry  III.  to  fill  the  chair  of  St.  Peter, 
happened  on  his  way  to  Italy  to  visit  the  Abbey  of 
Cluny  ;  when  there  an  Italian  monk  named  Hildebrand, 
the  son  of  a  carpenter,  drawn  to  Cluny  some  years  before 
through  zeal  for  reformation,  dared  to  present  himself  to 
the  new  Pontiff,  and  tell  him  that  an  emperor's  nomi- 
nation could  confer  no  right  in  the  spiritual  kingdom  of 
Christ  :  he  adjured  him  to  proceed  to  Piome,  throw  off 
his  empty  title,  and  restore  to  clergy  and  people  their 
liberty  of  election.  Bruno,  to  his  great  credit,  listened, 
desired  to  take  him  with  him,  and  on  his  arrival  in  Piome 
placed  himself  at  the  discretion  of  the  clergy  and  the 
people.  He  was  chosen  pope,  and  Hildebrand,  from 
his  position  beside  the  pontifical  throne,  already  gave 


T] 


38  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

evidence  of  what  his  future  course  was  to  be  under  the 
name  of  Gregory  the  Seventh. 

Gregory  VII.  inaugurated  a  new  period  which 
began  by  a  reverse.  At  the  outset  that  great  pontiff 
is  seen  by  the  mere  force  of  his  word  to  reduce  the 
sensual  and  bloodthirsty  Henry  IV.  to  seek  penitence 
and  pardon  at  the  Castle  of  Canossa,  and  then  it  in- 
deed appeared  that  barbarism  had  been  conquered,  and 
that  Europe  was  willing  to  submit  to  the  laws  of  a 
theocracy,  which  risked  the  loss  of  temporal  power,  but 
was  destined  to  revive  spiritual  life  throughout  the 
world.  But  some  years  later  the  same  emperor  took 
Rome,  enthroned  an  Antipope  in  the  Vatican,  and  force 
again  coerced  conscience,  whilst  Gregory  VII.  uttered 
at  Salerno  his  dying  words,  "  I  have  loved  righteousness 
and  hated  iniquity,  and  therefore  I  die  in  exile."  More 
terrible  than  ever  seemed  the  catastrophe  in  which,  not 
an  empire  alone,  but  that  principle  which  alone  could 
give  empires  vigour,  was  perishing  ;  yet  this  time 
Christians  did  not  look  for  the  world's  immediate  ex- 
tinction, and  one  of  the  bishops  in  attendance  on  the 
dying  Pope  answered  him,  "  My  Lord,  you  cannot  die 
in  exile,  for  God  has  given  you  the  earth  for  a  possession 
and  its  nations  for  an  inheritance." 

And,  indeed,  from  the  tomb  of  Gregory  VII.  pro- 
ceeded that  mediœval  progress  which  is  too  well  known, 
too  incontestable,  too  much  enlightened  by  modern 
science,  to  make  more  than  a  sketch  of  its  principal 
features  necessary.  The  strife  between  the  hierarchy 
and  the  empire  continued  more  formidably  as  the  rival 
powers  found  more  illustrious  champions — on  the  one 
side  Frederic  I.  and  Frederic  II.,  as  great  in  the  field 
as   in  the  council    chamber,  on  the  other  the  Popes 


OF  PEOGEESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.     39 

Alexander  III.,  Innocent  III.,  Innocent  IV.,  consum- 
mate politicians  and  heroic  priests.  After  two  centuries 
of  warfare,  the  vanquished  empire  renounced  its  usur- 
pations on  the  spiritual  order;  the  Popes,  in  aiming 
at  aggrandizing  the  Church,  had  achieved  her  freedom  ; 
the  two  powers  separated — force  returned  to  its  ovm 
province,  and  the  rights  of  conscience  were  saved.  At 
the  same  time  the  Papacy  executed  another  design 
of  Gregory  VII.  It  gathered  into  one  the  nations  of 
the  West,  long  given  up  to  ceaseless  conflicts,  without 
justice  and  barren  of  result,  and  poured  them  over  the 
East.  There,  if  fight  they  must,  they  might  wage  a 
sacred  war,  justified  by  a  most  holy  cause,  and  with  the 
victory  of  right  and  liberty  as  its  result  and  reward. 
The  nations,  borne  far  away  from  that  powerful  German 
empire  and  its  usurped  dominion  over  them,  freed 
themselves  from  vassalage  and  regained  their  autonomy. 
Foucher,  of  Chartres,  pictures  the  crusaders,  whether 
German,  French,  or  English,  living  together  on  terms 
of  brotherly  equality.  The  modern  nations  gained  their 
spurs  in  Palestine,  and  to  the  visible  unity  of  the 
empire  succeeded  the  moral  unity  of  the  Christian 
commonwealth. 

And  feudalism  succumbed  to  the  same  blow.  Under 
the  banner  of  the  cross  the  middle  class  fought  with  the 
same  title  as  the  nobles,  that  of  soldiers  of  Christ;  they 
gained  the  same  indulgences,  and  if  they  fell,  equally 
with  them  earned  the  martyi-'s  palm.  The  merchants  of 
Genoa  and  of  Venice  planted  the  scahng-ladder  on  the 
walls  of  Saracen  towns,  and  led  the  assault  with  as 
finn  a  hand  and  as  fierce  a  bearing  as  the  barons  of 
France.  In  vain  did  feudalism  create  in  the  Holy  Land 
her  principalities  and  her  marquisates.     She  returned 


40  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTUEY. 

thence  in  her  agony,  returned  to  find  in  Europe  a  triple 
contest  to  maintain  ;  against  the  Church,  which  reproved 
private  war  ;  against  royalty  spreading  its  jurisdiction 
daily  to  the  prejudice  of  seignorial  rights  ;  and,  lastly, 
against  the  nascent  power  of  the  commonalty.  The 
Commonwealths  of  Italy,  allied  to  the  Papacy  by  a 
community  of  peril,  were  bound  to  espouse  its  cause, 
and  the  first  example  is  seen  in  the  republic  of  Milan, 
whose  glorious  history  is  well  known.  In  1046  a  noble 
named  Gui  had  obtained  by  bribery  the  archbishopric  of 
that  city,  and  was  maintained  in  it  by  a  corrupted  clergy 
and  a  tyrannical  aristocracy.  Two  schoolmasters,  the 
priest  Landulf  and  the  deacon  Ariald,  undertook  to 
relieve  the  profaned  see  of  St.  Ambrose,  so  banding 
together,  first  their  own  pupils,  and  then  gradually  the 
bulk  of  the  populace,  they  bound  them  in  solemn  league 
against  the  simoniacal  and  incontinent  clergy.  Kome 
roused  herself  at  the  sound  of  the  dispute,  and  Peter 
Damiani,  charged  as  Papal  Legate  with  the  reform  of 
the  Church  of  Milan,  heard  the  complaints  of  the 
people,  and  obliged  the  archbishop  and  his  clergy  to 
sign  a  public  condemnation  of  concubinage  *  and 
simony.  But  their  engagement  was  soon  trampled 
under  foot,  and  Ariald  died  at  the  hands  of  his  enemies, 
but  left  an  heir  of  his  design  in  the  warrior  Harlembert, 
who  was  beloved  by  the  multitude  and  powerful  by  his 
eloquence  as  well  as  by  his  prowess.  He  was  declared  the 
champion  of  the  Church,  received  from  the  Pope  the 
gonfalon  of  St.  Peter,  rallied  the  discouraged  party  of 
reform,  bound   it  by   a   new  oath,  and  sustained  an 

*  The  clergy  of  Milan  seem  to  have  been  actually  married. 
Ariald  says  of  them,  "  Et  ipsi  sicut  laici  palam  uxores  ducimt." 
Vit.  Beat.  Arialdi.    Bolland,  xxvii.;  Jun.— (TV.) 


OF  PKOGRESS  IN  THE  AGES  OF  DECLINE.     41 

obstinate  war  against  the  nobility,  whom  he  expelled 
from  the  city,  and  at  length  died  in  triumph  in  repelling 
an  assault,  fighting  at  the  head  of  his  men  with  the 
standard  of  St.  Peter  in  his  hand.  But  the  reigning 
Pope  was  Gregory  VII.,  and  he  consummated  the  work 
of  the  deacon  and  the  knight.  Simony  and  concu- 
binage were  conquered,  the  nobility  reduced  to  a  mere 
share  in  the  government,  and  the  commonalty  of  Milan 
gained  that  strong  plebeian  organization  which  for  two 
hundred  years  was  the  support  of  popes  and  the  dismay 
of  emperors. 

Whilst  the  cities  of  Lombardy  and  Tuscany  formed 
themselves  into  republics,  and  treated  on  equal  terms 
with  monarchs,  the  communal  spirit  had  passed  the 
Alps,  the  Rhine,  and  the  Pyrenees.  After  the  admir- 
able work  of  Augustin  Thierry,  there  is  no  need  for  us 
to  show  how  the  spirit  of  liberty  revivified  the  remi- 
niscences of  the  Roman  municipality  or  the  traditions 
of  the  German  guild  ;  if  it  did  not  succeed  in  rendering 
the  cities  paramount,  it  made  them  sharers  in  sove- 
reignty. Their  deputies  took  part  in  States  General, 
and  the  Christian  principle  of  natural  equality  produced 
equality  in  the  political  order. 

In  the  midst  of  this  strife  and  agitation,  literature 
found  ample  place,  and  filled  it  with  special  distinction. 
It  is  not  true  that  literature  only  loves  peace  ;  she  loves 
war,  too,  when  civilizing  in  its  results — when  the  sword 
is  drawn  in  the  cause  of  intellect,  and  when  not  in- 
terests but  contrary  principles  are  encountered  ;  when 
minds,  divided  between  those  principles,  are  bound  to 
exercise  the  power  of  choice  and  consequently  of  thought. 
The  ages  of  Pindar  and  of  Augustus  sprang  from  Sala- 
mis and  Pharsalia  ;  the  quarrel  over  investitures  awoke 


42  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

the  scholastic  philosophy;  and  Gregory  VII.  wished 
not  only  for  a  chaste  but  also  for  a  learned  clergy.  At 
a  council  at  Eome,  in  1078,  he  renewed  the  canons 
which  instituted  in  each  episcopal  see  chairs  for  in- 
struction in  the  liberal  arts.  It  is  not  easy,  as  some 
have  imagined,  to  enslave  a  people  by  putting  it  under 
priestly  guidance.  Wherever  a  priest  has  stood,  the 
succeeding  generation  will  find  a  theologian  ;  in  the 
third  the  theologian  will  bring  forth  a  philosopher,  who 
in  his  turn  will  produce  a  publicist,  and  the  publicist 
will  bring  liberty.  Those  who  know  Little  of  the  Middle 
Age  will  only  see  in  it  one  long  night,  during  which 
priests  are  keeping  watch  over  troops  of  slaves  ;  yet  one 
of  these  slandered  priests  was  called  Anselm,  and  he 
was  troubled  with  the  desire  of  finding  the  shortest 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God.  The  thought  alone 
sufficed  to  make  him  a  great  metaphysician,  to  bring 
him  disciples,  to  rouse  up  opponents,  and  plunge  the 
Christian  mind  into  the  controversy  which  was  to  range 
Abelard  against  Bernard,  and  drive  many  an  intellect 
to  the  last  excess  of  temerity.  Amidst,  but  rising 
above,  the  tempest,  appear  the  two  Angels  of  the  Schools, 
St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  St.  Bonaventura,  charged  with 
the  task,  if  death  had  not  checked  it,  of  laying  the  last 
stone  to  the  edifice  of  Christian  dogma  and  mysticism 
respectively.  These  two  Saints  did  not  dread  enervat- 
ing theology  by  recognizing  philosophy  as  a  distinct 
science,  nor  profess  that  haughty  contempt  for  reason 
which  has  been  lately  too  much  affected.  From  the 
heights  of  eternal  truth  they  did  not  despise  the  wants 
of  their  time,  but  embraced  them  with  a  disinterested 
view  ;  and  St.  Thomas  wrote  on  the  origin  of  laws,  on 
the  legitimate  share  of  democracy  in  political  constitu- 


OF   PEOGKESS    IN    THE    AGES    OF    DECLINE.  43 

tiens,  on  tyranny  and  insurrection,  pages  which  have 
startled  a  later  age  by  their  boldness.  Never  was 
thought  more  free  than  in  the  supposed  era  of  its 
bondage,  and,  as  if  liberty  alone  was  little,  she  had 
power.  Her  universities  were  endowed  by  Pope  and 
Emperor  ;  she  possessed  laws,  magistracies,  and  a 
studious  but  turbulent  people.  An  historian  of  the 
epoch  gave  Christendom  three  capitals — Eome,  the  seat 
of  the  Hierarchy  ;  Aix-la- Chapelle,  the  seat  of  Empire  ; 
and  Paris,  the  seat  of  Learning.  Life  flowed  in  full 
tide  through  the  learned  literature,  but  it  did  not  gush 
less  abouudiugly,  and  flourished  with  greater  grace  and 
freedom,  in  the  vulgar  tongues.  It  brought  forth  from 
them  two  kinds  of  poetry,  one  common  to  all  the 
Western  nations,  though  ripening  earliest  on  its  native 
soil  of  France,  which  sang  of  the  heroes  who  are  the 
type  of  chivalric  life,  and  that  respect  for  women  which 
is  its  charm  ;  the  other  the  national  lay  which  is  proper 
to  each  people,  and  records  its  individual  genius  and 
tradition.  Germany  had  her  N'lb  dung  en-lied,  still 
steeped  in  barbarous  colouring  and  pagan  association  ; 
in  it  we  behold  long  cavalcades  riding  through  nameless 
forests,  bloodstained  banquets,  the  children  of  light  at 
issue  with  those  of  darkness,  and  the  hero-conqueror 
of  the  Dragon  perishing  for  the  sake  of  an  accursed 
treasure  and  an  abandoned  woman.  The  mists  of  the 
North  lent  their  shadows  to  these  sombre  fictions,  but 
the  Southern  sunshine  gave  warmth  and  colour  to  the 
epic  of  the  Cid.  Spain  in  its  essence  lived  in  this  hero, 
the  terror  of  infidels  but  a  rebel  to  his  king — religious, 
but  with  so  proud  a  piety  that  the  Almighty  Himself  is 
said  to  have  treated  him  wdth  distinction,  and  warned 
him,  through  St.  Peter,  of  his  departure  from  the  world. 


44  CIVILIZATION   IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Italy  chose  a  still  better  part,  and  found  inspiration  in 
holiness.  The  land  which  Gregory  had  ploughed  pro- 
duced from  its  furrows  a  double  harvest  of  Saints  and 
of  artists  ;  here  St.  Anselm,  St.  Francis,  St.  Thomas, 
and  St.  Bonaventura,  with  a  number  of  tender  and 
ardent  souls  clustered  around  their  greater  intellects; 
there  a  whole  generation  of  architects  and  painters, 
who,  with  Giotto  at  their  head,  formed  rank  at  the  tomb 
of  St.  Francis  ;  the  bond  uniting  faith  and  genius  was 
never  more  visible,  and  the  national  poem  of  Italy  was 
naturally  counted  a  sacred  epopee.  Thus  did  Dante 
think,  and  from  his  meditations  proceeded  that  patriotic 
and  théologie  poem,  written  for  a  country  whose  pas- 
sions it  stirred — for  the  Christian  world,  whose  Belief 
it  glorified — for  the  Middle  Age,  whose  crimes,  virtues, 
and  learning  it  pictured — for  modern  times,  which  it 
surpasses  in  the  grandeur  of  its  presentiments  ;  a  poem 
that  rang  with  the  groans  of  earth  and  the  hymns  of 
heaven. 

.     .     .     .     Poema  sacro 
A  cui  ha  posto  man  cielo  e  terra. 

It  is  also  our  duty  to  discuss  the  growth  of  industry 
and  material  prosperity,  the  humbler  tasks  which  are 
imposed  upon  the  majority.  We  may  say  that  in  many 
ways  the  Middle  Age  preserved,  expanded,  and  in- 
creased the  material  wealth  of  the  ancient  world.  We 
have  seen  already  how  the  crusades  gave  back  to  the 
Latins  all  those  ways  of  commerce  which  had  of  old 
been  opened  on  the  side  of  the  Levant  ;  how  apostolic 
zeal  impelled  men  beyond  these  and  to  the  very  ex- 
tremity of  Asia  ;  we  have  beheld  the  monks  reaping  the 
tradition  of  Roman  agriculture,  reconquering  foot  by 


OF    PEOGEESS    IN    THE    AGES    OF    DECLINE.  45 

foot,  by  spontaneous  toil,  lands  which  the  indolence  of 
slaves  had  left  waste,  and  carrying  the  precepts  of  the 
Georgics  to  the  banks  of  the  Weser  and  the  Elbe.  We 
must  point  also  to  the  ancient  cities  saved  from  the  fury 
of  the  barbarians  or  rising  again  from  their  ashes, 
thanks  to  the  courage  of  their  bishops  or  the  respectful 
immunities  which  surrounded  the  reliquaries  of  their 
saints,  as  well  as  to  the  new  cities  multiplying  around 
the  abbeys  ;  for,  like  all  civilizing  influences,  the  Church 
loved  to  build.  But  it  was  not  as  Rome  built,  for 
Christianity  has,  so  to  speak,  changed  the  aspect  of 
towns  as  well  as  the  manners  of  men  :  of  old  every  soul 
was  turned  outwards — a  man  lived  in  the  public  place, 
or  in  the  richly  decorated  atrium,  where  he  received  his 
clients  ;  the  rest  of  his  house  was  neglected,  and  the 
narrow  chambers  opening  on  the  peristyle  were  good 
enough  for  his  women,  children,  and  slaves.  But 
Christianity  turned  the  heart  of  man  towards  inner 
joys,  pointed  out  happiness  at  the  domestic  hearth,  and 
made  him  embellish  the  place  in  which  he  passed  his 
life  with  his  "v^dfe  and  family  ;  thence  came  the  splendid 
woodwork  and  tapestry,  the  richly  carved  furniture,  in 
which  lay  the  pride  of  our  ancestors.  At  first  sight 
the  modern  towns  seem  far  inferior  to  the  cities  of  old. 
The  ancients  built  small  temples,  it  is  true,  but  their 
amphitheatres  were  immense,  their  baths  stupendous, 
their  porticoes  and  colonnades  without  number.  The 
Christian  city  was  grouped  humbly  round  the  cathedral 
on  which  every  effort  had  been  expended  ;  if  there  was 
any  other  public  building  it  would  be  the  town-hall,  the 
school,  or  the  hospital.  The  ancients  built  for  pleasure, 
and  in  that  department  we  must  despair  of  rivalry  :  our 
towns  are  built  for  work,  for  sorrow,  and  for  prayer, 


46  CIVILIZATION   IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

and  it  is  in  the  knowledge  of  these  that  the  eternal 
superiority  of  Christian  times  consists. 

We  may  finish  here  with  Dante,  the  worthy  follower 
of  Charlemagne,  and  of  Gregory  VII.,  coming  as  a 
conqueror  to  inaugurate  a  new  era  of  progress,  by  his 
own  defeat  to  point  to  a  new  epoch  of  ruin.  For  the 
great  poet  who  carried  on  to  the  Middle  Age  the  legacy 
of  his  triumphant  thought,  was  also  great  in  his 
failure,  exiled  from  his  country,  which  denied  him 
sepulture,  and  destined  to  he  followed  by  that  four- 
teenth century  which  was  to  see  the  fall  of  the  Italian 
republics,  France  in  the  flames  of  war,  and  the  schools 
in  decline.  But  neither  this  dreary  age  nor  any  other 
could  prevail  against  the  design  of  God  and  the  voca- 
tion of  humanity. 

We  have  traversed  a  space  of  eight  hundred  years,  a 
considerable  portion  of  human  destiny,  and  have  en- 
countered three  epochs,  each  commencing  with  a  season 
of  decline  :  but  each  decline  veiled  a  progress,  assured 
by  Christianity,  to  be  worked  out  obscurely  and  silently 
as  if  beneath  the  surface,  till  it  came  to  the  light  of 
day,  and  burst  forth  in  a  juster  economy  of  society, 
in  a  brighter  flash  of  intellect.  We  have  reached  the 
term  of  the  Middle  Age,  but  must  beware  of  supposing 
that  humanity  had  but  to  descend,  even  but  one 
short  slope,  before  reascending  to  higher  altitudes, 
which  would  not  yet  be  the  last.  We  have  given  full 
credit  to  the  Middle  Age,  and  may  now  avow  what  was 
wanting  to  that  period  so  full  of  heroism,  but  also 
instinct  with  pagan  associations  and  savage  passions. 
From  these  came  perils  to  the  faith,  which  never  had 
to  enter  upon  conflicts  more  terrible,  disordered  man- 
ners, mad  impulses  of  the  flesh,  lust  for  blood,  and  all 


OF   PROGRESS    IN    THE    AGES    OF   DECLINE.  47 

that  caused  saints,  preachers,  and  contemporary  mo- 
ralists to  despair.  As  severe  judges,  they  acknowledged 
the  vices  of  their  epoch,  and  many  even  ignored  the 
very  good  which  they  themselves  produced.  The 
scandals  which  deceived  them  show  us  that  the 
Middle  Age  did  not  fully  achieve  Christian  civilization, 
and  from  the  error  of  these  great  souls,  we  may  learn, 
amidst  our  own  deterioration,  not  to  deny  an  invisible 
progress.  Fallen  upon  evil  days,  we  must  remember 
that  the  Faith  in  progress  has  traversed  darker  times, 
and  like  iEneas  to  his  despairing  comrades,  let  us  say 
that  we  have  passed  so  many  trials  that  God  will  also 
end  our  present  probation, — 

O  passi  graviora,  dabit  Deus  Ms  quoque  finem  ! 


48  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTURY. 


CHAPTEE  II. 


THE     FIFTH     CENTURY. 


Before  entering  upon  a  study  of  the  barbarous  epoch, 
we  must  know  in  what  the  wealth  of  the  human  mind 
consisted  at  the  moment  of  the  invasions  ;  how  much 
of  it  was  to  perish  in  that  great  catastrophe,  as  an 
empty  ornament  buried  in  the  grave  of  antiquity  ;  and 
how  much  was  to  survive  as  the  heritage  of  the  modern 
nations.  We  shall  start  from  the  death  of  Theodosius 
at  the  dawn  of  the  fifth  century,  and,  leaving  aside 
the  East  as  exercising  but  a  remote  influence  on  the 
period,  confine  ourselves  to  the  destinies  of  humanity 
as  worked  out  in  the  provinces  of  the  West. 

At  the  moment  when  all  civilization  seemed  doomed 
to  extinction,  we  find  two  forms  of  it,  one  pagan,  the 
other  Christian,  confronting  each  other  with  their  re- 
spective doctrines,  laws,  and  literature,  disputing  for  the 
possession  of  the  fresh  races  who  were  pressing  upon 
the  threshold  of  the  Empire.  Paganism,  indeed,  had 
taken  no  speedy  flight  before  the  laws  of  the  Christian 
emperors  and  the  progress  of  philosophy.  At  the 
close  of  the  sixty  years  during  which  the  edicts  of 
Constantius,  renewed  by  Theodosius,  had  been  pressing 
hard  upon  the  superstitions  of  idolatry,  in  the  West 
at  least  the  temples  were  still  open,  and  the  sacrificial 
flames  still  unextinguished.     When  Honorius  came  to 


THE    FIFTH    CENTURY,  49 

Rome  in  404  for  the  celebration  of  his  sixth  consulate, 
the  shrines  of  Jove,  of  Concord,  and  of  Minerva  still 
crowned  the  Capitol,  and  the  statues  of  the  old  deities 
on  their  pediments  were  still  presiding  over  the 
Eternal  City.  Yotive  altars  covered  with  inscriptions 
testified  that  the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats  had  not 
ceased  to  flow,  and  to  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century 
the  sacred  fowls  were  fed  whose  presages  governed 
Rome  and  the  World.  The  pagan  festivals  and  their 
appropriate  games  were  still  marked  in  the  calendars. 
We  hardly  realize  antiquity  in  its  nature-worship, 
which,  amidst  the  songs  of  poets  and  the  apologies  of 
sages,  resulted  in  the  celebration  of  the  two  great 
mysteries  of  life  by  religious  prostitution  and  human 
sacrifice,  or  how  in  the  theatre  and  amphitheatre  dedi- 
cated as  temples  to  Bacchus  and  Sol,  the  gods  were 
honoured  by  mysterious  rites,  comprising  nameless 
horrors  which  outraged  the  plainest  laws  of  modesty,  or 
by  the  mutual  massacre  of  myriads  of  gladiators  rush- 
ing to  death  amidst  the  applause  of  earth's  most 
polished  race.  It  was  lust  and  bloodshed  which  in 
despite  of  imperial  edicts  kept  the  crowd  spell-bound 
at  the  altars  of  their  idols. 

Philosophy  had  done  no  more  towards  redeeming 
the  higher  minds  of  the  ruling  class,  the  heirs  of 
the  old  senatorial  families.  The  prodigious  labours 
of  the  Alexandrian  philosophers,  however  admirable  for 
erudition,  subtlety,  and  boldness,  had  only  tended  to 
revive  Paganism,  by  lending  to  the  worship  which  the 
Roman  aristocracy  could  only  defend  as  a  State  insti- 
tution the  gloss  of  a  refined  interpretation.  The  old 
system  was  to  fall  by  the  hand  of  Christianity,  before 
the    spiritual    weapons    of  controversy    and    charity, 

VOL.   I.  3 


50  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

preaching  and  martyi'dom.  We  shall  glance  at  the 
learned  discussions  in  which  St.  Augustine  exhausted 
his  zeal  and  eloquence  to  attract  the  choice  intellect 
of  a  Volusian,  a  Louginian,  or  a  Licentius,  but  will 
mark  more  closely  the  rise  of  that  instruction  which 
was  devoted  to  the  ignorant  and  the  insignificant,  to 
whom  Paganism  had  never  preached,  enter  the  families 
in  which  war,  as  it  were,  was  levied  against  some 
idolatrous  parent  till  he  was  brought  a  happy  cap- 
tive to  the  waters  of  Baptism,  and  listen  to  the  shouts 
of  the  circus  when  the  monk  Telemachus  threw  him- 
self between  the  fighting  gladiators  and  died  under  the 
stones  of  the  spectators  to  seal  by  his  blood  the  aboli- 
tion of  those  detestable  games. 

But  error  yielded  slowly,  like  night  leaving  its 
mists  behind.  The  Pantheism  of  Alexandria  was  des- 
tined to  a  new  birth,  to  carry  its  temerity  into  the  very 
chairs  of  the  Scholastic  philosophy.  In  the  full  blaze 
of  classic  antiquity  in  the  schools  of  Jamblichus,  of 
Maximus  of  Ephesus,  and  the  last  pagan  philo- 
sophers, flourished  magic  and  astrology  and  the  occult 
sciences,  supposed  to  have  been  spawned  in  the  dark- 
ness of  the  Middle  Age.  Moreover,  the  ignorant 
country-folk  {imcjanï)  shrunk  from  parting  with  a 
religion  which  appealed  to  their  passions.  The  pil- 
grims from  the  North  wondered  in  the  eighth  century  at 
seeing  the  squares  of  Rome  still  profaned  by  pagan 
dances.  The  Councils  of  Gaul  and  Spain  long  pursued 
with  anathema  the  sacrilegious  art  of  the  diviners,  and 
the  idolatrous  practices  of  the  Calends  of  January. 
Latin  superstitions  joined  hands  with  those  of  Germany 
to  make  a  last  stand  against  conquering  Christianity. 
Everything    pagan    in    character,     however,    did    not 


THE    FITFH    CENTURY.  51 

deserve  to  i^erish,  for  even  iu  a  false  religion  there 
is  a  meritorious  craving  for  commerce  .with  Heaven, 
of  fixing  it  in  times  and  places,  and  under  definite 
symbols.  The  Church  had  the  faculty  of  appreciat- 
ing this  want,  which  is  a  right  of  human  nature.  She 
spared  the  evangelized  nations  useless  violence,  and  re- 
conciled art  and  nature  to  Christ  by  dedicating  to  Him 
the  temples  and  festivals,  flowers  and  perfumes,  hitherto 
lavished  on  false  divinities.  The  heretic  Yigilantius 
was  scandalized  at  this  wise  economy,  but  St.  Jerome 
undertook  to  justify  it,  and  in  his  reply  we  see  the  germ 
of  that  tender  jdoHc}^  which  inspired  St.  Gregory  to 
instruct  the  English  missioners  to  leave  to  the  newly 
made  Christians  their  rustic  festivals,  innocent  ban- 
quets, and  earthly  joys,  that  they  might  be  the  more 
willing  to  taste  of  spiritual  consolations.  Thus  the 
whole  of  the  Church's  struggle  against  Roman  poly- 
theism was  but  an  apprenticeship  to  another  conflict 
which  she  was  destined  to  wage  against  the  Paganism 
of  the  barbarians,  and  in  her  last  efi'orts  to  convert 
the  ancient  world  we  foresee  the  genius  and  patience 
she  was  to  display  in  the  education  of  the  new  nations. 
The  preparation  for  the  future  amidst  the  ruins  of 
the  past,  the  conjunction  of  perishable  elements  with 
an  immortal  principle,  which  afl'ords  so  strong  a  contrast 
in  the  history  of  religion,  is  more  maniferjt  in  that  of 
Law,  which  in  the  fifth  century  the  emperors  organized 
by  giving  force  to  the  writings  of  the  old  jurisconsults, 
and  codifying  the  decisions  of  Christian  princes.  The 
lawyers  of  the  classic  age  had  never  abjured  the  law 
of  the  Twelve  Tables,  and  all  the  efi'orts  of  the  school 
had  failed  in  obliterating  the  pagan  character  impressed 
on  the    constitution    of  the  State  and  of  the  family. 

3  ■■■■ 


52  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

The  pagan  doctrine  was  to  deify  tlie  City,  to  make  an 
apotheosis  of  public  power,  to  render  it  sovereign  in  the 
conscience  -without  any  further  appeal  to  abstract  justice. 
The  Emperor  had  inherited  a  divine  right  over  the 
goods,  the  persons,  and  the  souls  of  men.  He  was  above 
the  law,  which  was  the  creature  of  his  will  ;  as  depo- 
sitary of  military  power  (imperium)  he  was  master  of 
every  life,  as  Vicar  of  the  rights  of  the  Koman  people 
he  was  strictly  the  only  proprietor  of  the  soil  of  the 
provinces,  of  which  the  natives  had  but  a  precarious 
possession.  It  was  not  surprising  that  he  should 
extract  the  taxes  by  exhausting  the  one  and  torturing 
the  other  ;  and  there  was  no  excess  of  persecution 
or  of  exaction  that  did  not  find  principles  to  justify 
it. 

The  iniquity  of  the  public  law  had  descended  into 
that  of  civil  life.  The  father,  as  representative  of  Jove, 
surrounded  by  his  tutelary  gods,  the  images  of  his 
ancestors  who  lent  him  their  majesty,  exercised  right  of 
life  and  death  over  his  wife,  could  expose  his  children 
or  crucify  his  slaves.  Philosophers  admired  this  family 
constitution,  with  its  priestly  and  military  power 
installed  at  every  hearth,  as  a  domestic  empire  on 
the  model  of  which  was  framed  the  empire  of  the 
World. 

But  the  violence  of  authority  had  provoked  a  resur- 
rection of  liberty.  The  human  conscience,  outraged  in 
its  last  refuge,  began  a  memorable  resistance  by  op- 
posing to  the  civil  law  that  of  the  tribes  and  the 
prœtorial  edicts,  the  resjwnsa  of  the  jurisconsults  and 
the  constitutions  of  princes  to  the  Code  of  the  Twelve 
Tables,  lastly  succeeding  in  introducing  into  the  impe- 
rial councils  such  firm  and  subtle  minds  as  those  of 


THE   FIFTH    CENTURY.  53 

Gaius,  Ulpian,  and  Papinian,  who  tempered  the  severity 
of  the  old  legislation.  But  the  struggle  lasted  for 
eight  centuries,  and  the  victory  of  equity  could  only  be 
effected  by  the  triumph  of  Christianity.  A  new  faith 
was  necessary  to  deal  its  death-blow  to  the  respect  for 
the  old  laws,  embolden  Constantino  to  decree  the  civil 
emancii^ation  of  woman,  the  penalty  of  death  against 
the  murderer  of  a  son  or  of  a  slave,  to  elicit  from 
Valentinian  III.  and  Theodosius  IV.  the  noble  decla- 
ration that  the  prince  is  bound  by  the  laws — a  short 
speech,  but  marking  the  greatest  of  all  political  revo- 
lutions, causing  the  temporal  power  to  descend  to  a 
lower  but  securer  place,  and  inaugurating  the  consti- 
tutional principle  of  modern  society.  The  Eoman  law, 
as  reformed  by  Christian  emperors,  survived  the  crash 
of  the  empire,  penetrated  gradually  the  barbarian  mind, 
and  earned  Bossuet's  panegyric,  "that  good  sense,  the 
master  of  human  life,  reigned  throughout  it,  and  that 
a  more  beautiful  application  of  natural  equity  had  never 
been  seen." 

But  the  crown  of  pagan  society,  and  its  incomparable 
lustre,  was  derived  from  its  literature.  Rome  doubtless 
knew  no  longer  the  inspiration  of  her  great  centuries, 
yet  the  reigns  of  Constantino  and  of  his  successors,  so 
often  accused  of  hastening  the  Decline,  seemed  for  a 
space  to  give  a  new  flight  to  the  eagles,  a  fresh  burst  to 
the  genius  of  Rome.  Ammianus  Marcellinus  com- 
posed history  with  the  dash  and  bluff  sincerity  of  a 
soldier.  Vegetius,  in  his  "  Treatise  on  the  Military 
Art,"  gathered  up  the  precepts  of  the  science  before  it 
passed  away  to  the  Goths  and  the  Franks,  and  the 
contemporaries  of  Symmachus  rank  him  with  Pliny 
in  the  exquisite  urbanity  of  his  correspondence,  and 


54  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

the  elegance  of  his  panegyric.  Among  the  poets,  three 
may  be  distinguished  as  worthily  sustaining  the  old 
age  of  the  Pagan  Muse. 

Of  these  Claudian  stood  first.  Born  in  Egypt,  he 
had  early  drunk  deep  at  the  sources  of  Alexandrian 
learning,  from  which  the  great  poets  of  the  Augustan 
era  had  drawn,  and  had  found  a  stray  chord  of  that 
Latin  lyre  broken  on  the  day  on  which  Lucan  caused 
his  veins  to  be  opened.  Since  the  "  Pharsalia,"  Kome 
had  heard  nothing  comparable  to  the  songs  which  told 
of  the  disgrace  of  Eutropius  or  the  victories  of  Stilicho. 
But  Claudian  was  so  steeped  in  pagan  memories  that 
he  could  only  move  in  a  cloud  of  fables,  so  to  speak, 
out  of  sight  of  his  Christian  age,  out  of  hearing  of  the 
voices  of  St.  Ambrose  and  St.  Augustine  thundering 
at  Milan  and  Hippo,  not  even  thinking  of  defending  the 
menaced  altars  of  his  gods.  He  was  singing  of  the 
Eape  of  Proserpine  as  the  cultus  of  the  Virgin  Mary 
was  taldng  possession  of  the  Temple  of  Ceres  at  Ca- 
tania, and  was  inviting  the  Graces,  the  Nymphs,  and 
the  Hours  to  deck  with  their  garlands  Serena,  the 
lovely  wife  of  Stilicho,  who  in  her  hatred  of  idolatry 
had  torn  the  necklace  from  the  image  of  Cybele  to 
adorn  her  own  neck.  He  dared  to  introduce  the  Christian 
princes  into  Olympus,  and  bring  upon  the  scene  ïheo- 
dosius,  Jupiter's  greatest  foe,  talldng  familiarly  with 
Jove  himself.  Kutilius  Numatianus,  though  also  a 
pagan,  wrote  under  less  illusion,  and  with  a  more 
accurate  feeling  as  to  the  spirit  of  his  age.  He  was 
no  mere  poet  by  profession,  but  a  statesman,  a  prefect 
of  Home,  though  on  leaving  the  city  in  418  to  revisit 
his  native  Gaul,  then  under  the  ravages  of  the  bar- 
barians, he  wrote  of  his  journey  in  verses  so  graceful 


THE    FIFTH    CEXTUEY.  55 

as  to  deceive  the  ear  into  a  remembrauce  of  Ovid.  The 
ardour  of  his  patriotism,  his  passionate  worship  of 
Rome,  as  the  greatest  deity  of  antiquity,  saved  him 
from  illusion,  and  raised  him  high  above  his  literary 
contemporaries. 

"  Hear  me,  listen,  0  Rome,  ever  beauteous  Queen  of 
a  world  that  is  for  ever  thine  own  :  thou  who  art  one 
amongst  the  Olympians,  hearken,  Mother  of  men  and 
of  gods  ;  when  we  pray  in  thy  temples  we  are  not  far 
from  heaven.  For  thee  the  sun  doth  turn  on  his 
course,  he  rises  upon  thy  domains,  and  in  their  seas 
doth  he  plunge  his  chariot.  From  so  many  diverse 
nations  thou  hast  moulded  one  sole  country  ;  from  that 
which  was  a  world  hast  thou  made  a  city  {Urbem  fecisti 
quod  iwiiis  orhis  erat).  He  who  can  count  thy  trophies 
can  tell  the  number  of  the  stars.  Thy  gleaming 
temples  dazzle  the  eye.  Shall  I  sing  of  the  rivers,  that 
the  vaults  of  air  bring  to  thee — the  entire  lakes  that 
feed  thy  baths  ?  Shall  I  tell  of  the  forests  imprisoned 
beneath  thy  ceilings,  and  peopled  with  melodious  birds  ? 
Thy  year  is  but  an  eternal  spring,  and  vanquished 
Winter  respects  thy  pleasures.  Raise  the  laurel  from 
thy  brow,  that  the  sacred  foliage  may  bud  forth  anew 
around  thy  hoary  head  !  It  is  thy  children's  tradition 
to  hope  in  danger,  like  the  stars  which  set  but  to  rise 
again.  Extend,  extend  thy  laws,  they  will  live  through 
centuries  become  Roman  perforce,  and  alone  among 
things  of  earth  dread  not  thou  the  shuttle  of  the 
Fates."* 

Finely  and  truly  drawn.  The  old  Roman  magis- 
trate, vn\h   a    lawj'er's    insight,   foresaw  that   Rome, 

*  Pvutil.  Niuuat.  1.  i.  00-133. 


56  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUKY. 

betrayed  by  her  arms,  would  still  reign  by  her  laws  ; 
and,  pagan  as  it  was,  his  faith  in  his  country  did  not 
deceive  him. 

Sidonius  Apollinaris  was  pagan  neither  in  creed  or 
in  name,  but  he  was  in  education  and  in  habit  of  mind. 
Christian,  like  Ausonius,  but  like  him  reared  in  the 
schools  of  the  grammarians  and  rhetoricians  of  Gaul, 
he  could  not  construct  an  hexameter  or  hang  together 
dactyls  or  spondees  without  stirring  up  every  mytho- 
logical association.  Whether  he  was  composing  the 
panegyric  of  the  Emperor  Avitus,  or  that  of  Majorian 
after  the  deposition  of  Avitus,  or  that  of  Anthemius 
after  the  fall  of  Majorian,  he  treated  always  of  the 
same  deities,  who  were  never  weary  of  taking  part  in 
the  triumph  of  the  victor.  Happily,  his  panegyrics 
failed  before  the  complaisance  of  the  gods,  for  Sidonius 
was  converted,  became  a  bishop,  and  was  destined  to 
become  a  saint.  But  though  he  mastered  his  passions 
he  could  not  stifle  his  recollections.  M.  Ampère  has 
ably  shown*  the  struggles  of  that  mind  divided 
between  victorious  faith  and  mythology,  which  still 
so  thoroughly  possessed  it,  that  in  writing  to  St. 
Patientius,  Bishop  of  Lyons,  in  praise  of  a  distri- 
bution of  corn  to  the  poor,  he  could  find  no  higher 
congratulation  possible  than  in  calling  him  a  second 
Triptolemus. 

Such  was  the  sequel  of  the  old  poetry,  though 
Sidonius  found  one  more  disciple  in  the  sixth  century 
in  the  person  of  Fortunatus,  and  the  writings  of 
Claudian  found  copyists  and  imitators  in  the  monas- 
teries of  the  Middle  Age.     But  antiquity  was  to  pro- 

*  Histoire  Littéraire  de  la  France,  t.  ii. 


THE    FIFTH    CENTURY.  57 

pound  a  harder  lesson  to  the  ages  which  followed. 
Rome  in  losing  genius  had  still  retained  tradition,  had 
formed  a  magistracy  of  instruction  and  provided  the 
schools  of  the  Capitol  with  thirty-one  professors  of 
jurisprudence,  of  rhetoric,  and  of  grammar.  The  youth 
pressed  into  these  schools  with  ardour  and  in  such 
numbers,  that  an  edict  of  Valentinian  was  necessary 
for  a  sort  of  police  regulation  of  the  studies.  Gratian 
had  desired  that  the  provinces  should  enjoy  the  same 
benefit,  and  that  every  great  town  should  possess  public 
chairs  with  rich  endowments.  The  favour  of  law 
multiplied  these  laborious  grammarians,  who  made  it 
their  profession  to  explain  and  comment,  and  conse- 
quently religiously  to  preserve  the  classic  texts.  The 
learned  Donatus,  whose  lectures  St.  Jerome  had  attended, 
fixed  the  principles  of  Latin  grammar.  Macrobius,  in 
his  commentary  on  the  dream  of  Scipio,  and  in  the  seven 
books  of  the  "  Saturnalia,"  brought  all  the  memories 
of  Alexandrian  philosophy  and  of  Greek  poetry  to 
elucidate  the  thought  of  Cicero  and  of  Virgil.  Lastly, 
Marcianus  enveloped  in  a  spirited  and  graceful  allegory 
the  seven  liberal  arts  wherein  all  the  learning  of  the 
ancients  had  just  been  comprised.  We  must  not 
wonder  that  the  science  of  antiquity  could  be  compressed 
within  the  narrow  compass  of  seven  arts;  upon  that 
condition  and  under  that  form,  the  heritage  of  the 
human  mind  was  destined  to  traverse  the  barbarous 
epoch,  and  the  treatises  and  commentaries  whose  dry- 
ness we  despise  were  to  save  Latin  literature.  The  text- 
book of  Martianus  Capella  was  to  become  the  classic 
summary  of  all  secular  instruction  during  the  sixth 
and  seventh  centuries,  to  be  multiplied  under  the  pens 
of  monks,  and  be  translated  into  the  first  stammering 

3f 


58  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

utterances  of  the  modern  languages.  Donatus  became 
so  pojîular  that  his  name  was  a  synonym  of  grammar  in 
the  schools  of  the  Middle  Age  ;  no  student  was  too  poor  to 
possess  a  Donatus,  and  there  was  a  Provençal  grammar 
under  the  name  of  Donatus  Provincialts.  The  Middle 
Age  was  right  in  attaching  itself  to  the  masters  who 
gave  it  that  example  of  toil  which  is  more  necessary 
than  genius,  for  genius  is  hut  a  thing  of  the  moment  ; 
and  God,  who  never  wastes  it,  seems  to  will  that  the  world 
should  know  how  to  dispense  with  it.  Yet  He  never 
lets  labour  fail,  but  distributes  it  with  a  liberal  hand,  as 
a  punishment  or  as  a  blessing,  effacing  the  distinction 
between  ages  and  between  men.  Genius  ravishes 
intelligence  for  a  brief  space,  raising  it,  indeed,  above 
the  common  condition  of  life,  but  work  comes  to  recall 
it  from  its  lofty  forgetfulness  and  reduce  it  to  the  level 
of  mortals.  When  we  see  Dante  borne  by  the  flight  of 
his  thought  to  the  highest  sphere  of  his  Paradise,  to  the 
threshold  of  the  infinite,  we  may  well  hesitate  in  our 
belief  of  the  destined  equality  of  all  souls  ;  but  when 
in  the  intervals  of  his  song  we  mark  him  exhausting 
his  sweat  in  study,  paling  over  the  labour  like  the 
meanest  scholar  of  his  century,  we  take  courage  in 
finding  equality  re-established  and  humbler  spirits 
avenged. 

We  see,  then,  that  antiquity  was  not  to  be  entirely 
buried  beneath  the  ruins  of  the  Roman  Empire  ;  we 
must  now  find  the  new  principle  which  preserved  it, 
how  the  Christianity  which  has  been  held  so  inimical 
to  the  old  civilization  laid  upon  it  a  hand  which  was 
beneficent  though  it  might  be  severe,  as  upon  the  sick 
whom  we  treat  with  rigour  and  weaken  but  to  save.  The 
close  of  the  fourth  century  still  rang  with  the  pathetic 


THE    FIFTH    CENTURY.  59 

accents  of  the  Fathers.  M.  Villemain  has  clone  justice 
to  those  masters  of  Christian  eloquence  in  a  work 
which  can  never  be  revised,  and  we  must  shrink  from  a 
subject  which,  in  the  words  of  one  of  old,  he  has  made 
his  possession  for  ever.  The  East  we  leave  aside.  The 
West  had  mourned  the  death  of  St.  Ambrose  in  393, 
and  St.  Jerome  in  his  seclusion  in  the  Holy  Land  only 
acted  on  events  through  the  authority  of  his  untiring 
correspondence.  St.  Augustine  remained  to  fill  with 
his  presence  the  opening  years  of  the  fifth  century,  and 
with  his  thought  those  which  followed.  This  is  not 
the  place  to  relate  his  history,  or  to  depict  his  tender 
but  impetuous  heart,  or  his  soul  tormented  by  its 
cravings  after  light  and  peace;  and  wiio,  indeed,  is 
ignorant  of  his  career,  his  birth  under  the  African  sky, 
his  education  at  Madaura  and  Carthage,  his  long  aber- 
ration, and  the  Providential  guidance  which  brought 
him  to  Milan  and  to  the  feet  of  St.  Ambrose,  the  conflict 
of  his  will  groaning  under  the  strokes  of  grace,  the  voice 
which  cried  out  to  him.  Tulle,  lege  !  In  the  writings  of 
this  great  mind  we  shall  study  that  which  is  even 
greater — Christian  metaphysics  taking  its  first  form, 
and  Christianity  defending  itself  with  redoubled  vigour, 
that  it  might  remain  what  God  had  made  it,  namely,  a 
religion,  instead  of  being  degraded  by  the  sects  to  a 
philosophy  or  a  mythology. 

A  thirst  for  God  tormented  the  soul  of  St.  Augustine 
like  a  malady  depriving  his  day  and  night  of  their 
repose.  This  want  had  cast  him  into  the  assemblies  of 
the  Manichees,  in  which  he  had  been  promised  an 
explanation  of  the  origin  of  evil  ;  had  impelled  him 
towards  the  Neoplatonic  school,  to  learn  the  nature  of 
the  Supreme  Goodness  ;    and,  lastly,  had  flung  him 


60  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

upon  his  knees  under  the  fig-tree  in  his  garden  to 
embrace  Christianity,  as  he  wetted  the  pages  of  St. 
Paul's  epistles  with  his  tears.  Henceforward  his  life  was 
hut  one  long  struggle  towards  "the  Beauty,  ever  ancient 
yet  ever  new,  which  to  his  reproach  he  had  begun  to 
love  so  late."  Shortly  after  his  conversion,  in  the  retreat 
that  he  had  given  to  his  tempest-tost  mind  under  the 
shades  of  Cassiciacum,  he  wrote  those  "  Soliloquies"  in 
which  he  supposes  his  reason  to  demand  from  him  the 
aim  of  his  knowledge.  "  Two  things,"  he  replied, 
"  namely,  God  and  the  soul."  But  to  what  notion  of 
Him  did  he  aspire  ?  Did  it  suffice  to  know  God  as  he 
knew  Alypius,  his  friend  ?  Nay  ;  for  knowledge  does 
not  alone  imply  a  grasping  by  means  of  the  senses  ; 
a  seeing,  touching,  or  feeling.  But  would  not  the 
theology  of  Plato  or  Plotinus  satisfy  his  curiosity  ? 
Assuming  them  to  be  true,  Augustine  wished  to  go 
beyond  them.  But  mathematical  truths  are  perfect  in 
their  clearness.  Would  he  not  be  content  at  knowing 
the  attributes  of  God  as  the  properties  of  the  circle  or 
of  the  triangle  are  known  ?  "I  agree,"  he  replied, 
"  that  the  verities  of  mathematics  are  very  clear,  but, 
from  the  experience  of  God,  I  expect  a  different  happi- 
ness and  a  difierent  joy." 

Boldly,  but  with  firm  steps,  he  began  his  course  on 
the  road  towards  the  knowledge  of  God.  He  deter- 
mined to  leave  Italy — that  land  of  temptation — and  it 
was  while  he  was  awaiting  a  favourable  wind  at  Ostia, 
and  leaning  one  day  with  his  mother  from  the  window 
of  their  house  in  contemplation  of  the  sky,  that  he  fell 
into  that  wonderful  train  of  thought  which  has  been 
handed  down  by  him  in  the  ninth  book  of  his  "  Con- 
fessions "  : — 


THE    FIFTH    CENTUKY.  61 

"  We  were  alone,  talking  with  infinite  sweetness, 
forgetful  of  the  past  looking  beyond  the  future,  of  what 
the  eternal  life  of  the  blest  would  be.  .  .  .  Kaised 
towards  God  by  the  ardent  aspiration  of  our  souls,  we 
traversed  the  whole  sphere  of  things  corporeal,  and  the 
sky  also,  in  which  the  sun,  moon,-  and  stars  spread 
abroad  their  light.  And  in  our  full  admiration  of  thy 
works,  0  Lord,  we  mounted  yet  higher,  and  reached  the 
region  of  the  soul  ;  then  passed  higher  yet,  to  repose  in 
that  Wisdom,  itself  Uncreated,  by  whom  all  things 
were  made,  which  has  ever  existed  and  will  ever  be  ; 
in  whose  Eternal  Being  is  no  past,  present,  or  future. 
And  as  we  spoke  thus,  with  this  thirst  for  the  wisdom 
of  God,  for  a  moment,  by  an  effort  of  the  heart,  we 
touched  upon  It,  and  then  groaned  as  we  left  the 
first-fruits  of  our  souls  clinging  there  whilst  we  de- 
scended to  earth  at  the  sound  of  our  voices."  Eegret- 
fully  do  we  abridge  that  wonderful  narration.  They 
are  indeed  happy  who  have  had  such  experiences,  with 
a  mother  like  his  ;  who,  with  her,  have  found  their  God 
and  never  again  lost  sight  of  Him. 

These  few  words  comprise  the  whole  of  his  metaphy- 
sical system.  In  them  he  introduces  the  novelty  of  his 
doctrine  as  compared  with  that  of  Plato  or  of  Aristotle, 
the  idea  of  Omnipotence,  which,  if  not  unknown  to 
antiquity,  was  at  least  contradicted  by  the  theory  of  an 
Eternal  Matter,  by  refusing  to  the  Supreme  Worker  the 
privilege  of  producing  the  clay  which  His  hands  were 
permitted  to  fashion.  Philosophy  of  old  had  lived 
upon  an  equivocal  axiom  :  Ex  nihilo  nihil.  To  estab- 
lish the  counter-dogma  of  Creation,  Augustine  found  it 
necessary  to  dive  deep  into  the  secrets  of  Nature,  and 
thence  to  re-ascend  to  God  (1)  by  the  idea  of  Beauty, 


62  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

as  shown  in  his  work  "De  Musicâ;"  (2)  by  the  idea  of 
Goodness,  as  in  the  "  De  Libero  Arbitrio  ;"  (3)  by  the 
idea  of  Truth,  as  in  the  treatise  "  De  Vera  EeHgione." 
M.  l'xibbé  Maret  has  thrown  Hght  upon  the  vast  work 
which  he  pursued  in  spite  of  the  demands  of  theolo- 
gical controversy,  amidst  a  people  whom  he  was  called 
upon  to  instruct  and  to  govern,  in  the  presence  of  the 
Donatists  and  before  the  approach  of  the  Vandals. 
The  "Theodicea"  of  St.  Augustine  was,  however, 
achieved,  to  be  elaborated  to  the  highest  degree  by 
St.  Anselm,  and  finally  enriched  by  the  arrangement 
and  additional  corollaries  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas.  But 
the  Bishop  of  Hippo  was  the  acknowledged  master  of 
the  generation  of  philosophers  who  filled  the  Middle 
Age  with  their  discussions.  Popular  tradition  gave 
testimony  to  this  fact,  and  we  read  in  the  "  Golden 
Legend  "  how  a  monk  in  ecstasy  on  beholding  the 
heaven  and  the  hosts  of  the  elect,  wondering  at  not 
seeing  St.  Augustine,  inquired  for  the  holy  doctor. 
"He  is  higher  far,"  it  was  answered;  "  gazing  ever 
on  the  Holy  Trinity,  and  discussing  It  throughout 
eternity." 

Mysteries,  indeed,  failed  to  discourage  the  genius  of 
St.  Augustine.  From  the  time  in  which  he  uttered 
that  great  speech,  Intellectum  valcle  ama,  he  became  of 
necessity  the  guide  of  all  the  theologians  who,  like 
St.  Anselm,  were  willing  to  put  faith  in  quest  of  intel- 
ligence. Fides  quœrcns  intellectum — not  the  idea  of 
God  alone,  but  the  whole  cycle  of  Christian  dogma, 
was  embraced  in  his  meditations.  No  depths  were  too 
obscure  for  his  search,  no  controversy  too  perilous  for 
his  intellect.  His  age  was  endangered  by  two  forms  of 
heresy  ;  one  of  pagan  parentage,  the  other  the  offspring 


THE    FIFTH    CEXTUKY.  63 

of  the  philosophic  schools.  Ou  the  one  hand,  the 
Manichees  were  restoring  the  doctrines  of  Persia  and 
of  India,  the  strife  of  the  two  principles,  emanation 
and  metempsychosis — errors  which  had  power  to  fasci- 
nate even  nobler  minds,  as  in  the  case  of  St.  Augustine 
himself  for  so  many  years,  to  seduce  the  ^^llgar  and 
form  in  Eome  a  powerful  sect  which  terrified  St.  Leo 
the  Great  by  its  orgies.  Four  hundred  years  of  preach- 
ing and  martyrdom  thus  seemed  fated  to  result  in  a 
rehabilitation  of  pagan  fables,  and  Christianity  to  dis- 
solve at  the  breath  of  Manes  into  a  mere  mjiihology. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  Arians,  in  denying  Christ's 
di^dnity,  the  Pelagians,  in  suppressing  gi-ace,  severed 
the  mysterious  ties  which  linked  man  to  God.  The 
supernatural  element  disappeared,  whilst  the  Platonic 
Demiurgus  replaced  the  Consubstantial  Word,  and  the 
Faith  was  reduced  to  the  level  of  a  philosophy.  St. 
Augustine  prevented  this  issue,  and  as  his  early  life 
had  been  spent  in  struggling  free  from  the  Manichœan 
net,  so  its  later  years  were  devoted  to  combating 
Arius  and  Pelagius.  Like  all  the  great  servants  of 
Providence,  he  fought  less  for  his  own  time  than  for 
posterity.  The  moment  was  approaching  wherein 
Arianism  was  to  enter  as  a  conqueror  through  all  the 
breaches  of  the  Empire,  in  the  train  of  the  Goths, 
Vandals,  and  Lombards  ;  and  in  those  days  of  terror 
bishops  would  have  had  little  leisure  to  study  by  the 
light  of  conflagrations  the  disputed  questions  of  Nicaea, 
had  not  Augustine  kept  watch  over  them.  His  fifteen 
treatises  on  the  Trinity  comprised  all  the  objections 
of  the  sectarians  and  all  the  arguments  of  the  orthodox  ; 
and  it  was  to  him  the  victory  was  due  in  the  con- 
ferences of   Vienna  and  Toledo,  when   the    Burgun- 


64  CIVILIZATION  IN  FIFTH   CENTUEY. 

dians  and  Visigoths  abjured  their  heresy.  In  later 
days,  when  the  Mauichœism  preserved  in  the  East 
by  the  Paulicians  had  regained  its  sway  in  the  West, 
when  its  disciples,  under  the  names  of  Cathari  or 
Albigenses,  had  mastered  the  half  of  Germany,  of 
Italy,  and  of  Southern  France,  and  gravely  imperilled 
Christian  society,  it  was  not  the  sword  of  Simon  de 
Montfort  which  supi^ressed  it — for  fire  and  sword 
cannot  conquer  thought  however  false,  (rather  many 
noble  hearts  must  have  wavered  at  the  sight  of  the 
violence  which  degraded  the  crusade,  and  was  con- 
demned by  Innocent  III.) — but  the  sound  doctrine 
of  St.  Augustine,  as  expressed  by  his  firm  yet  loving 
intellect,  resettled  their  faith,  and  regained  the  Chris- 
tian world  for  orthodoxy.  In  that  conflict,  the  excesses 
of  which  we  must  detest,  but  need  not  to  exaggerate, 
victory  was  due  to  truth  rather  than  to  force. 

Christianity  must  be  the  soul  of  a  society  which 
it  fashions  after  its  own  image,  and  in  the  fifth 
century  that  great  work  seemed  near  its  achievement. 
The  Papacy,  fully  acknowledged  in  its  authority  since 
the  time  of  St.  IrenjBus  and  Tertullian,  which  had 
presided  at  Nicaea,*  and  to  which  the  Council  of 
Sardica  had  referred  all  episcopal  judgments,  found 
in  St.  Leo  the  Great  a  mind  capable  alike  of  defending 
its  rights  and  understanding  its  duties.  While  the 
Greek  mind  was  divided  between  Nestorius  and 
Eutyches,  Leo  intervened  with  the  judicious  force 
of  a  lawful  authority,  and  caused  the  Council  of 
Chalcedon  to  save  the  faith  in  the  East.  His  more 
especial  task  lay  in  preserving  Western  civilization, 
by  appeasing  Genseric  at  the  very  gates  of  Kome, 
*  Probably  in  the  person  of  Hosius  of  Cordova. — (Tr.) 


THE    FIFTH    CENTURY.  65 

Attila  at  the  passage  of  the  Mincio,  and  by  forming 
the  monastic  legions  which  were  to  execute  the 
designs  of  the  Papacy.  Souls  worn  out  by  vice  and 
pubhc  misfortune  were  driven  into  seclusion  by  the 
fame  of  the  institutions  of  the  deserts,  and  the  popular 
histories  of  their  saints  written  by  St.  Athanasius, 
St.  Jerome,  and  Cassian.  The  wealthy  but  menaced 
cities  of  Eome,  Milan,  and  Treves  still  possessed 
amphitheatres  for  the  pleasure  of  the  mob,  but  side 
by  side  with  monasteries,  in  which  were  moulded  a 
race  better  able  to  cope  with  the  dangers  of  the  future. 
The  austere  men,  the  enemies  of  light,  as  the  pagan 
Eutilius  disdainfully  calls  the  monks  whom  he  found 
in  the  islands  which  fringed  the  Italian  coast,  were 
soon  to  be  the  only  guardians  of  enlightenment.  The 
great  abbeys  of  Lerins,  of  the  island  of  Barba,  of 
Marmontiers,  were  open  a  century  before  the  time 
of  Benedict,  not  to  introduce  the  religious  life  into  the 
West,  but  to  perpetuate  it,  in  tempering  its  rigour. 

But  as  Christian  people  could  not  emigrate  entirely 
into  the  cloister,  we  must  mark  how  the  new  faith 
gradually  took  possession  of  the  lay  world,  and,  by 
correcting  its  laws  and  manners,  formed  a  more  gentle 
society  than  that  of  St.  Augustine's  time,  and  equal 
to  it  in  polish.  We  see  in  the  clever  letters  of  St. 
Jerome  to  the  Roman  matrons,  who  claimed  descent 
from  the  Gracchi  and  Emilii,  and  spent  their  time  in 
learning  Hebrew,  speculating  on  the  mystic  words  of 
Isaiah,  and  diving  into  every  controversy  of  their  time, 
to  what  a  pitch  the  Church  had  brought  female  educa- 
tion. It  formed  a  better  estimate  of  the  sex  which 
antiquity  had  condemned  to  spinning  wool,  in  hopeless 
ignorance  of  things  of  divine  or  of  political  interest. 


66  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

St.  Jerome  never  appeared  more  noble  than  in  stooping 
to  teach  Lœta  how  to  train  her  child,  by  putting  letters 
of  box-wood  or  ivory  under  its  eyes,  and  rewarding 
its  early  efforts  by  a  flower  or  a  kiss.  Of  old  it  had 
been  said,  Maxima  dehetur  puero  reverentia,  but  the 
saintly  doctor  went  further,  and  made  Lseta's  daughter 
the  angel  of  her  house  ;  and  it  was  her  task  to  begin, 
when  a  mere  baby,  the  conversion  of  her  grandfather, 
a  priest  of  the  old  gods,  by  springing  upon  his  knee 
and  singing  the  Alleluia,  in  spite  of  his  displeasure. 
Christianity  did  not,  as  men  say,  wait  for  the  favouring 
times  of  barbarism,  to  build  up  in  darkness  the  power 
of  popes  and  monks,  but  laid  the  foundations  of  its 
edifice  in  the  light  of  day,  under  the  jealous  gaze  of 
the  pagans.  The  approaching  invasions  seemed  more 
fraught  with  danger  than  advantage  to  its  interests. 
The  Canon  law,  whose  birth  we  have  noticed,  found 
an  obstinate  resistance  from  the  passions  of  the  bar- 
barians, and  the  Gospel  had  to  devote  more  than  twelve 
centuries  to  calming  the  violence  of  the  conquerors, 
and  reforming  the  evil  instincts  of  their  race,  in 
restoring  that  clearness  of  intellect,  that  gentleness  in 
the  commerce  of  life,  that  tolerance  towards  the  erring, 
and  the  many  other  virtues  which  throw  over  the 
society  of  the  fifth  century  some  of  the  charm  of 
modern  manners. 

But  Religion  had  not  consummated  her  work  as  long 
as  Literature  resisted,  and  the  century  which  saw  the 
fall  of  so  many  altars  beheld  that  of  the  Muses  still 
surrounded  by  an  adoring  multitude.  Yet  Christianity 
shrank  from  condemning  a  veneration  for  the  beautiful, 
and  as  it  honoured  the  human  mind  and  the  arts  it 
produced,  so  the  persecution  of  the  Apostate  Julian,  in 


THE    FIFTH    CENTUKY.  G7 

which  the  study  of  the  classics  had  been  forbidden  to 
the  faithful,  was  the  severest  of  its  trials.  Literary 
history  possesses  no  moment  of  greater  interest  than 
that  which  saw  the  School,  with  its  profane  traditions 
and  texts,  received  into  the  Church.  The  Fathers,  whose 
Christian  austerity  is  our  wonder,  were  passionate  in 
their  love  for  antiquity,  which  they  covered,  as  it  were, 
with  their  sacred  vestments,  and  thus  guaranteed  to 
it  the  respect  of  the  future.  By  their  favour  Virgil 
traversed  the  ages  of  iron  without  losing  a  page,  and 
by  right  of  his  Fourth  Eclogue  took  rank  among 
the  prophets  and  the  sybils.  St.  Augustine  would 
have  blamed  Paganism  less  if,  in  place  of  a  temple 
to  Cybele,  it  had  raised  a  shrine  to  Plato,  in  which  his 
works  might  have  been  publicly  read.  St.  Jerome's 
dream  is  well  known,  and  the  scourging  inflicted  upon 
him  by  angels  for  having  loved  Cicero  too  well  ;  yet 
his  repentance  was  but  short-lived,  since  he  caused 
the  monks  of  the  Mount  of  Olives  to  pass  their  nights 
in  copying  the  Ciceronian  dialogues,  and  did  not  shrink 
himself  from  expounding  the  lyric  and  comic  poets  to 
the  children  of  Bethlehem. 

While  pagan  eloquence,  expelled  from  the  Forum, 
could  find  no  outlet  but  in  the  lecture-halls  of  the 
rhetoricians,  or  in  the  mouths  of  the  mendacious  pane- 
gyrists of  the  Csesars,  a  new  form  of  oratory  had 
founded  its  first  chair  in  the  Catacombs,  and  was 
drawing  inspiration  from  the  depths  of  the  conscience. 
St.  Ambrose  organized  it,  and  filled  a  chapter  of  his  book, 
"  Do  Officiis,"  with  precepts  on  the  art  of  preaching, 
which  St.  Augustine  developed,  not  fearing,  in  his 
treatise,  "  De  Doctrinà  Christiana,"  to  borrow  from  the 
ancient  rhetoric  as  much  as  was  consistent  with  the 


68  CIVILIZATION  IN   FIFTH   CENTURY. 

gravity  of  the  Gospel  message.  We  may  listen,  in 
Peter  Cbrysologus,  Gaudentius  of  Brescia,  Maximus  of 
Turin,  to  orators  at  once  learned  and  popular,  but 
their  light  was  outshone  by  another  preacher,  who 
addressed  himself  not  to  some  thousands  of  souls,  but 
to  the  entire  West.  Amidst  the  confusion  of  the 
invasions,  Salvian  undertook  the  task  of  justifying  the 
action  of  Providence.  Eloquence  never  raised  a  more 
terrible  cry  than  that  which  told  from  his  lips  the  agony 
of  the  Eoman  world,  pointing  to  the  mockery  which 
accompanied  its  fall,  to  its  vain  struggles  beneath  the 
hand  of  God,  and  His  treatment  of  fire  and  sword 
which  failed  to  effect  its  cure.  Secamur  urimur  non 
sanamur. 

The  ancients,  in  writing  history,  had  aimed  at 
literary  beauty,  and  thus  loaded  the  narrative  with 
ornament  and  declamation.  The  Christians  only 
looked  for  truth,  they  wished  for  it  in  facts,  and 
applied  themselves  to  re-establishing  order  in  time, 
which  led  to  the  dry  but  scrupulous  chronicles  of  St. 
Jerome,  of  Prosper  of  Aquitaine,  and  the  Spaniard 
Idatius.  They  sought  for  truth  in  the  unravelling  of 
causes,  and,  so  to  speak,  made  the  Spirit  of  God  to 
wander  over  the  chaos  of  human  events.  The  philo- 
sophy of  history,  so  finely  sketched  by  St.  Augustine  in 
his  "  City  of  God,"  was  developed  by  the  pen  of  Paulus 
Orosius.  He  was  the  first  to  condense  the  annals  of 
the  world  into  the  formula  Divinâ  provldentiâ  agitur 
mundus  et  homo.  His  works  became  the  type  of  the 
chronicles  which  multiplied  in  the  Middle  Age. 
Gregory  of  Tours  could  not  treat  of  the  Merovingian 
period  without  ascending  to  the  origin  of  things  ;  and 
Otto  of  Freysingen,  in  his  fine  work,   "  De  Mutatione 


TSE    FIFTH    CENTUKY.  69 

Rerum,"  continued  the  chain  of  history  to  which  Bossuet 
was  to  add  the  last  and  most  elaborate  link. 

Poetry,  in  the  last  place,  was  destined  to  surrender 
the  language  which  had  been  lavished  on  the  false  gods 
to  the  praises  of  Christ.  When  the  Empress  Justina 
was  threatening  to  deliver  over  the  Basilica  of  Milan  to 
the  Arians,  St.  Ambrose,  with  the  Catholic  people,  passed 
day  and  night  in  the  sacred  place,  and,  to  wile  away  the 
tediousness  of  the  \'igils,  introduced  the  hymn-tunes 
which  had  already  found  a  place  in  the  Eastern  Church. 
The  sweetness  of  the  sacred  chant  soon  gained  the  ear 
of  the  West,  and  Christianity"  possessed  a  lyric  poetry. 
Contemporaneously  it  beheld  its  epic  take  its  rise  in  the 
verses  of  Sedulius  and  of  Dracontius,  and  could  even 
say  with  one  of  old,  Nescio  quid  majus  nascitiw  Iliade. 
Not  that  modern  genius  could  hope  to  rival  the  match- 
less perfection  of  the  Homeric  forms,  but  because 
humanity  thus  found  the  true  and  œcumenical  epopee 
whereof  every  other  was  but  a  shadow,  the  themes  of 
which  were  the  Fall,  Redemption,  and  Judgment, 
which  was  to  traverse  the  ages,  and  culminate  in  Dante, 
Milton,  and  Klopstock. 

Moreover,  in  the  fifth  century,  two  Christian  poets 
rose  above  the  crowd.  One  was  St.  Paulinus,  who  laid 
aside  the  honours  of  his  rank  and  fortune  to  dwell  at 
the  tomb  of  St.  Felix  of  Nola,  and  who  celebrated  the 
peace  of  his  seclusion  in  verses  which  were  already 
quite  Italian  in  their  gi-ace.  As  he  depicts  the  basilica 
of  the  Saint  blazing  with  taper-light,  its  colonnades 
hung  with  white  draperies,  its  flower-strewn  court,  with 
the  troops  of  devout  mountaineers  from  the  mountains 
of  the  Abruzzi  bringing  their  sick  on  litters,  or  driving 
their  cattle  before  them  to  receive  a  blessing,  we  might 


70  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY, 

fancy  ourselves  present  at  a  pilgrimage  of  the  Neapolitan 
peasantry  at  the  present  day.  The  other  was  the 
Spaniard  Prudentius,  who,  at  the  end  of  a  life  full  of 
honours,  and  long  service  to  his  duty,  devoted  to  God 
the  remnants  of  a  tuneful  voice  and  a  dashing  style. 
Beneath  a  method  which  the  authors  of  the  golden  age 
would  not  have  disowned,  a  modern  cast  of  thought  is 
apparent,  whether  the  poet  is  borrowing  the  most  genial 
accents  of  our  Christmastides  to  invite  the  earth  to 
wreathe  its  flowers  round  the  cradle  of  the  Saviour,  or, 
as  in  the  hymn  of  St.  Laurence,  is  drawing  the  veil 
with  a  Dantean  hardiness  from  the  Christian  destinies 
of  Rome,  or,  as  in  his  reply  to  Symmachus,  makes  a 
prayer  to  Honorius  for  the  abolition  of  the  gladiatorial 
shows  the  peroration  of  his  invective  against  Pagan- 
ism : — 

Nullus  in  iirbe  caclat  cnjus  sit  i)oena  voluptas  ! 
Jam  solis  contenta  feris  infamis  arena 
Nulla  cruentatis  liomicidia  ludat  in  armis  !  * 

It  is  not  sufficiently  known,  but  we  perhaps  may  learn, 
how  the  poetical  vocation  of  the  Middle  Age  was  sus- 
tained by  those  writers  who  filled  the  libraries,  shared 
with  Yirgil  the  honours  of  the  "  ^neid,"  and  moulded 
the  best  imaginations  of  the  time,  until  the  mind  grew 
weary  of  the  chaste  beauty  of  a  poetry  that  had  no 
pages  for  expurgation. 

Our  work  would  be  incomplete  if,  amongst  these 
germs  of  future  greatness,  we  should  forget  Christian 
art,  which  had  emerged  from  the  Catacombs  to  produce 
in  the  light  of  day  the  basilicas  of  Constantino  and 
Theodosius,  the  sepulchral  bas-reliefs  of  Rome,  of 
Ravenna,  and  of  Aries,  and   the  mosaics  with  which 

+•  Prudentius  contra  Symniacli.  1.  ii.  1120  et  seq. 


THE    FIFTH    CEXTURY.  71 

Pope  Sixtns  III.  embellished,  iu  433,  the  sanctuaiy  of 
St.  Mary  Major.  The  cupola  already  swelled  over  the 
tomb  of  St.  Constance,  and  the  Latin  cross  extended  its 
arms  in  St.  Peter's  and  in  St.  Paul's.  The  empire  was 
still  standing,  and  its  every  type  was  to  be  found  in 
that  Eomanesque  and  Byzantine  architecture  which  was 
soon  to  cover  with  monuments  the  shores  of  the  Loire, 
Seine,  and  Pihine,  and  which  from  the  broken  arch  of 
its  vault  was  to  produce  all  the  beauties  of  the  Pointed 
Gothic. 

We  have  thus  traced  the  rise  of  the  modern  faith, 
of  modern  society,  and  of  modern  art,  all  of  which 
were  born  before  the  inroad  of  the  barbarians,  and 
were  destined  to  grow  sometimes  through  their  aid, 
sometimes  in  their  despite.  The  Barbarian  mission 
was  not  that  of  inaugurating  a  craving  for  the  in- 
finite, a  respect  for  women,  or  a  sad-coloured  poetry. 
They  came  to  break  with  axe  and  lever  the  edifice 
of  pagan  society,  in  which  Christian  principles  were 
cramped  ;  yet  their  blows  were  not  so  crushing  as  to 
leave  no  remnants  of  the  old  ramparts,  iu  which 
heathenism  still  might  lurk.  AYe  shall  find  that  half 
the  vices  attributed  to  the  barbarians  were  those 
of  the  Roman  Decline,  and  a  share  of  the  disorders 
charged  upon  nascent  Christianity  must  be  laid  to 
the  account  of  antiquity.  In  this  category  must  be 
placed  the  vulgar  superstitions,  the  occult  sciences, 
the  bloody  laws  put  in  force  against  magic,  which 
do  but  repeat  the  old  decrees  of  the  Cœsars  ;  the 
fiscal  system  of  the  Mero^-ingian  kings,  which  was 
entirely  borrowed  from  the  imperial  organization  ;  the 
corruption,  lastly,  of  taste  and  the  decomposition  of 
language,  which  already  prognosticated  the  diversity  of 


72  CIYILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

the  new  idioms.  Beneath  the  common  civilization 
which  was  destined  to  knit  into  one  family  all  the  races 
of  the  West,  the  national  character  of  each  struggles  to 
the  surface.  In  every  province  the  Latin  tongue  found 
an  obstinate  resistance  in  native  dialects,  the  genius  of 
Eome  in  native  manners.  The  distinctive  elements  in 
the  three  great  Neo-Latin  nations  could  already  be 
recognized.  Italy  had  statesmen  in  Symmachus  and 
Leo  the  Great,  and  was  soon  to  possess  Gregory  the 
Great,  Gregory  VIL,  and  Innocent  III.  Spain  claimed 
a  majority  among  the  poets,  and  gave  them  that  dashing 
spirit  which  has  never  failed  from  Lucan  to  Lope  de 
Vega.  The  "Psychomachia"  of  Prudentius  was  a  pre- 
lude to  the  allegorical  dramas,  to  the  "Autos  Sacra- 
mentales"  of  Calderon.  Gaul,  lastly,  was  the  country 
of  wits,  of  men  gifted  with  repartee.  We  know  the 
eloquence  of  Salvian,  the  play  of  words  so  dear  to 
Sidonius  Apollinaris,  but  that  sage  of  the  Decline  was, 
moreover,  full  of  the  ancient  heroism,  when  called 
upon  to  defend  his  episcopal  see  of  Clermont  from  the 
assaults  of  the  Visigoths.  And  these  were  the  very 
features  in  which  Cato  summed  up  the  Gallic  character  : 
lîem  militarem  et  argute  loqui. 

Such  is  the  plan  of  our  course,  for  it  is  not  neces- 
sary to  follow  out  in  detail  the  literary  history  of  the 
fifth  century,  but  only  to  seek  light  for  the  obscurity 
of  the  succeeding  ages.  As  travellers  tell  of  rivers 
which  lose  themselves  amongst  rocks,  to  appear  again 
at  some  distance  from  their  hiding-place,  so  we  shall 
ascend  above  the  point  at  which  the  stream  of  tradition 
seems  to  fail,  and  will  attempt  to  descend  with  it  into 
the  gulf,  that  we  may  be  certain  that  the  issuing 
stream  is  indeed  the  same.     As  historians  have  opened 


THE    FIFTH    CENTURY.  73 

a  certain  chasm  between  antiquity  and  barbarism,  so 
let  us  undertake  to  re-establish  the  unfailing  com- 
munication granted  by  Providence  in  time,  as  well  as 
in  space  ;  for  there  is  no  study  more  fascinating  than 
that  of  the  ties  which  link  the  ages,  which  give  to  the 
illustrious  dead  disciples  century  after  century  down 
the  future,  and  thus  demonstrate  the  victory  of  thought 
over  destruction. 


VOL.    I. 


74  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 


CHAPTER  III. 


PAGANISM. 


In  the  fifth  century  Paganism,  at  first  sight,  seemed 
but  a  ruin.  It  is  commonly  supposed  that  the  fall  of 
superstition  was  imminent  before  the  preaching  of  the 
Gospel,  and  that  Christians  have  claimed  an  easy 
miracle  in  the  destruction  of  an  old  cult  which  had 
long  tottered  beneath  the  blows  of  philosophy  and  the 
popular  reason.  Yet  eighty  years  after  the  conversion 
of  Constantino  Paganism  survived,  and  a  greater  lapse 
of  time,  a  stronger  expenditure  of  effort,  was  required 
to  dispossess  the  ancient  religion  of  the  Empire,  still 
mistress  of  the  soil  through  its  temples,  of  society 
through  its  associations,  of  some  higher  souls  by  the 
little  truth  it  held,  of  the  mass  by  the  very  excess  of 
its  errors. 

When  the  Emperor  Honorius,  in  404,  celebrated  his 
sixth  consulate  at  Rome,  the  poet  Claudian,  charged 
with  the  task  of  doing  public  honour  to  the  heir  of  so 
many  Christian  emperors,  invited  him  to  recognize  in 
the  temples  which  surrounded  the  imjDerial  palace  his 
heavenly  body  guard,  and  pointed  to  the  sanctuary  of 
the  Tarpeian  Jove  which  crowned  the  Capitol,  and  the 
sacred  edifices  which  rose  on  every  side  toward  the 
sky,  upholding  on  their  pediments  a  host  of  gods  to 


PAGANISM.  75 

preside  over  the  City  and  the  World.*  We  cannot 
accuse  the  poet  of  reviving  in  hyperbole  the  lustre  of 
an  extinct  Paganism.  Several  years  later  a  topogra- 
phical survey  of  Eome,  in  numbering  the  monuments 
which  the  sword  and  fire  of  the  Goths  had  spared,  still 
counted  forty-three  temples  and  two  hundred  and 
eighty  chapels.  The  Colossus  of  the  Sun,  a  hundred 
feet  in  height,  still  reared  its  front  by  the  side  of  the 
Flavian  amphitheatre,  which  had  reeked  with  many  ;i 
martyr's  blood.  Statues  of  Minerva,  Hercules,  and 
Apollo  decorated  the  squares  and  cross  streets,  and  the 
fountains  still  gushed  under  the  invocation  of  the 
nymphs. f  Time  had  gone  by  filled  with  the  spirit  of 
Christianity,  the  era  of  St.  Augustine  and  of  St. 
Jerome,  but  in  419,  under  Valentinian  III.,  Rutilius 
Numatianus  still  sang  of  the  pagan  city  as  mother  of 
heroes  and  of  gods.  "Her  temples,"  said  he,  "bear 
us  nearer  to  heaven."  It  is  true  that  imperial  edicts 
had  closed  the  temples  and  forbidden  the  sacrifices, 
but  the  continued  renewal  of  these  laws  during  fifty 
years  shows  their  constant  infringement.  In  the 
midst  of  the  fifth  century  the  sacred  fowls  of  the 
Capitol  were  still  fed,  and  the  consuls,  on  entering 
ofiice,  demanded  their  auspices.  The  Calendar  noted 
the  pagan  festivals  side  by  side  with  the  feasts  of  the 
Saviour  and  the  Saints.  AVithin  the  City  and  beyond, 
throughout  Italy  and  the  Gallic  provinces,  and  even 
the  entire  Western  Empire,  the  sacred  groves  were 
still  untouched  by  the  axe,  idols  were  adored,  altars 
were  standing,  and  the  pagan  populace,  believing  alike 

*  Claiidian,  De  Sexto  Consulato  Honorii,  v.  43. 
f  Descriptio  XJrbis  Romse,  incerto  auctori  qui  vixit  sub  Ilonorio 
vel  Valentiniano  III. 

4  * 


76  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

in  the  eternity  of  their  cult  and  of  the  Empire,  were 
waiting  in  scornful  patience  till  mankind  grew  weary 
of  the  folly  of  the  cross.* 

Hitherto,  indeed,  the  fortunes  of  Rome  had  seemed 
mingled  with  those  of  her  gods,  and  from  the  three 
great  eras  of  her  history  had  been  gradually  evolved 
the  pagan  system  which  we  remark  in  the  fifth 
century.  The  kingly  epoch  had  furnished  the  antique 
dogmas  on  which  reposed  the  whole  theology  of  Rome. 
Supreme  over  all  things  stood  an  immutable  power, 
unknown  and  nameless  ;  beneath  were  other  deities 
known  to  men,  but  perishable  in  nature,  borne  along 
towards  a  fatal  revolution  which  was  to  destroy  the 
universe  and  raise  it  up  anew  ;  lower  still  came  souls, 
emanations  of  the  Deity,  but  fallen  and  doomed  to  an 
expiation  on  earth  and  in  hell,  until  they  became 
worthy  of  a  return  to  their  first  abode.  A  close  com- 
merce between  the  visible  and  invisible  worlds  was 
in  consequence  maintained  through  the  media  of 
auguries,  sacrifices,  and  the  worship  paid  to  the  Manes. 
Rome  herself  was  a  temple  in  near  relation  to  heaven 
and  hell,  square  in  form,  facing  towards  the  East, 
according  to  the  ancient  rites.  Each  patrician's  house 
was  a  sanctuary,  wherein  the  ancestral  images  from 
their  place  of  honour  watched  over  the  fortunes  of 
their  descendants.  The  laws  of  the  City,  hallowed 
by  the  auspices,  expanded  into  oracles,  magistracies 
became  sacerdotal,  every  important  act  in  life  a  reli- 
gious transaction.  A  people  so  permeated  with  respect 
for  their  gods  and  their  ancestors,  under  their  eyes  as 

*  Salvian.Pe  GuliornntionoDei  ;  rolcmius  Sylvius,  Latovcnlns, 
seu  Index  Dicrum  l''iislorum  ;  IJcugnot,  Histoire  de  la  Chute  du 
Paganisme  on  Occident. 


PAGANISM.  77 

was  the  firm  convictiou  in  council  or  in  war,  was  fit 
for  gi-eat  achievements.  These  obscure  but  potent 
doctrines  had  disciplined  the  old  Romans,  and  sus- 
tained the  edifice  of  the  commonwealth  ;  as  the  cloacae 
of  Tarquin,  those  sombre  but  gigantic  vaults,  had 
purified  the  soil  of  the  City  and  supported  its  monu- 
ments.* 

Doubtless  the  Greek  m}i:hology  modified  the  austerity 
of  this  primitive  belief.  It  had,  however,  appeared 
during  the  most  flourishing  ages  of  the  republic,  with 
the  first  examples  of  that  bold  policy  which  was  to 
advance  by  enlarging  the  circle  of  its  law  and  of  its 
worship,  and  receive  into  the  bosom  of  Rome  the  con- 
quered nations  and  their  gods.  The  divinities  of 
Greece  followed  the  car  of  Paulus-Emilius  and  of  Scipio 
to  the  Capitol  ;  but  though  the  victor  descended  when 
his  hour  of  triumph  was  past,  the  captive  gods  remained 
to  attract  every  art  around  their  shrines.  Sculptors  and 
poets  reared  an  Olympus  of  marble  and  gold  in  place  of 
the  deities  of  clay  to  which  the  old  Romans  had  done 
homage.  Religion  lost  her  power  over  morality,  but 
over  the  imagination  she  reigned  supreme.  At  length 
the  advent  of  the  Cnesars  opened  Rome  to  the  worship 
of  the  East.  As  the  respect  for  primitive  traditions 
was  withering  away,  so  society,  rather  than  remain 
godless,  sought  new  idols  at  the  world's  extremity.  It 
was  in  Isis  and  Serapis,  in  Mithra  and  his  mysteries, 
that  troubled  hearts  now  sought  repose,  Vespasian  and 
his  successors  have  been  often  blamed  for  their  sanction 
to  the  barbarous  rites  which  the   Senate  had  for  long 

*  Ottfried  Miiller,  Die  Etrusker;  Creuzer,  Religions  de 
l'Antiqmté,  translated  by  M.  Guigniaut  ;  Cicero,  De  Legibus, 
ii.  8,  12. 


78  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

contemptuously  repelled,  but  the  emperors  did  but 
renew  the  old  polic}',  and  as  sovereign  pontiffs  of  a  city 
which  boasted  of  giving  peace  to  the  world,  it  was  their 
duty  to  reconcile  all  religions.  They  realized  the  ideal 
of  polytheism,  in  which  there  was  room  for  all  the  false 
gods,  but  no  place  for  the  True. 

Thus  was  that  mighty  religion  rooted  in  the  history, 
the  institutions,  the  very  stones  of  Rome  ;  and,  in  jus- 
tice to  Paganism,  it  had  stronger  ties  in  the  souls  of 
men,  for  the  ancient  society  would  never  have  survived 
so  many  ages  had  it  not  possessed  some  of  those  truths 
which  the  human  conscience  never  entirely  lacks.  The 
Roman  religion  placed  one  supreme  deity  above  all 
secondary  causes  ;  he  was  proclaimed  upon  his  temples 
as  very  good  and  very  great.  The  feciales  called  him  to 
witness  before  hurling  the  dart  which  carried  with  it 
peace  or  war.  The  poet  Plautus  showed  the  messen- 
gers of  this  god  visiting  cities  and  nations  to  procure 
"  written  in  a  book  the  names  of  those  who  sustained 
wicked  lawsuits  by  false  witness,  and  of  those  who  per- 
jured themselves  for  money;  how  it  is  his  task  to  be 
judge  of  appeal  in  badly  judged  causes,  and  if  the  guilty 
think  to  gain  him  by  presents  and  victims,  they  lose  at 
once  their  money  and  their  trouble."*  Such  language 
was  that  of  a  poet  rather  than  a  philosopher,  but  it 
was  addressed  to  the  mob,  and  gained  their  applause 
in  touching,  like  so  many  nerves,  the  group  of  beliefs 
which  lay  at  the  root  of  the  public  conscience.  It  was 
mindful  also  of  the  dead,  and  had  touching  prayers  in 
their  behalf.  "  Honour  the  tombs,  appease  the  souls 
of  your  fiiihers.  The  Manes  ask  for  little ,:  to  them 
devotion  stands  in  the  place  of  rich  offerings."     Ex- 

*  Plautus,  Rudens,  prolog,  v.  1  et  seq. 


PAGANISM.  79 

piatory  sacrifices  for  ancestors  were  handed  down  as  a 
charge  upon  the  inheritance  from  father  to  son,  cere- 
monies whose  power  was  to  be  felt  in  hell,  to  hasten 
the  deliverance  of  souls  who  were  undergoing  purgation, 
and  bring  the  day  in  which  they  were  to  seat  themselves 
as  its  tutelary  deities  around  the  family  hearth.*  The 
whole  funeral  liturgy  bore  witness  to  faith  in  a  future 
life,  to  the  reversibility  of  merits,  to  the  solidarity  of 
the  family  organization.  The  thought  of  a  God  and 
remembrance  of  the  dead  were  as  two  rays,  unkindled 
by  philosophy  but  proceeding  from  a  higher  Source, 
with  capacity  of  still  guiding,  after  the  lapse  of  ages  of 
pagan  darkness,  some  chosen  spirits  in  the  right  way  ; 
so  they  throw  light  on  the  obstinate  resistance  offered 
to  Christianity  by  some  honest  but  timid  souls,  who 
answered,  like  Longinian,  to  the  arguments  of  St.  Au- 
gustine, that  they  hoped  to  reach  God  by  way  of  the  old 
observances,  and  through  the  virtues  of  antiquity.! 

But  that  small  and  well-meaning  band  judged  wrongly 
of  the  religion  whose  doomed  altars  they  were  defend- 
ing. If  Paganism  possessed  elevating  influences,  so 
also  did  elements  exist  in  Chaos.  Side  by  side  with 
doctrines  which  might  have  sustained  life  in  the  indi- 
vidual intellect  and  in  society,  a  principle  was  working 
which  must  ever  impel  towards  ruin  the  person  of  man 
and  civilization  itself.  The  evil  leaven  of  heathenism 
laboured  to  extinguish  reason  in  man  by  separating  it 
from  the  supreme  truth  whence  all  its  light  is  derived. 
Whereas  religion  is  bound  to  strain  every  nerve  in 
snatching  the  human  soul  from  the  distractions  of 
sense,  to  give  it  an  upward  flight  in  raising  the  veils 

*  Oa-ïcI.  Fast.  lib.  ii.  35  et  seq. 

t  Epistola  Louginiani  Augustino,  apud  Ep.  St.  Aug.  234, 


80  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Avhicli  hang  over  the  spiritual  world,  Paganism  diverted 
it  from  the  sphere  of  ideas  by  promising  to  find  its 
god  in  the  regions  of  sense.  It  pointed,  firstly,  to 
Him  in  Matter  itself,  whose  hidden  forces  it  hade  the 
faithful  to  deify.  The  Romans  adored  the  water  of 
their  fountains,  stones,  serpents,  and  the  accustomed 
fetishes  of  the  barbarian.  Mankind  till  then  had  paid 
honour  to  an  unknown  power,  conceived  to  be  greater 
than  himself;  his  second  and  more  culpable  error  lay 
in  adoring  himself,  in  deifying  that  humanity  which  he 
recognized  as  weak  and  sinful.  The  priests,  sculptors, 
and  poets  of  Paganism  borrowed  for  their  gods  not 
only  the  features  but  the  frailties  of  mortals,  and  thence 
rose  the  fables  which  throned  in  heaven  the  passions 
of  earth  ;  thence  came  the  whole  system  of  idolatry 
hardly  to  be  realized  in  the  intensity  of  its  madness. 
It  was  no  calumny  of  Christian  apologists,  but  the 
avowal  of  the  wise  ones  of  the  old  cult,  that  the  idols 
were  as  bodies  into  which  the  powers  of  heaven  de- 
scended when  conjured  by  the  prescribed  rites  ;  that 
they  were  held  captive  there  by  the  smoke  of  victims, 
nourished  by  their  fat  smeared  upon  the  statues,  their 
thirst  slaked  when  priests  poured  over  them  cupfuls  of 
gladiatorial  blood.  Men  of  sober  reason  spent  whole 
days  in  paying  to  the  Jupiter  of  the  Capitol  the 
homage  which  as  clients  they  owed  to  a  patron —  some 
in  offering  him  perfumes,  others  in  introducing  visitors 
or  declaiming  comedies  to  him.*  But  Eome  began  to 
crave  for  a  more  concrete  God  than  the  Capitolian  Jove, 

*  Photius,  Biblioth.  215  ;  Tit.  Liv.  lib,  xxxviii.  c.  43  ;  Cicero,  in 
Verr.  act  ii.  orat.  iv.  ;  Minutius  Felix,  Octavius,  23  ;  ïertullian, 
Apolog.  12;  St.  Cyp.  De  Spcctiu-ulis  ;  Arnobius,  Adversus  Gentes, 
1.  vi.  c.  17  ;  Seneca,  quoted  by  St.  Augustine,  De  Civ.  Dei,  1.  vi. 
c.  10. 


PAGANISM.  81 

and  found  a  Imng  and  most  terrible  deity  in  the  person 
of  her  Emperor.  Earth  could  ofler  nothing  more  divine 
in  the  sense  of  a  majesty  at  once  recognized  and  obeyed, 
and  Paganism  did  but  push  its  principles  to  their  con- 
sequence in  deifying  the  Caesars  ;  but  reason  fell  to  the 
lowest  depth  of  degradation,  and  the  Egyptians  gro- 
velling before  the  beasts  of  the  Nile  outraged  humanity 
less  than  the  age  of  the  Autonines,  with  its  philoso- 
phers and  jurisconsults  rendering  divine  honours  to  the 
Emperor  Commodus.* 

Again,  Paganism  perverted  the  Roman  ■\^'ill  by  turn- 
ing it  from  the  supreme  good  by  means  of  the  two 
passions — fear  and  desire.  Man  craves  for  God,  and 
yet  dreads  Him,  as  he  fears  the  dead,  the  life  to  come, 
and  all  invisible  things.  Drawn  irresistibly  towards 
Him,  he  takes  flight  and  avoids  His  very  Name,  and  the 
fear  which  severs  him  from  his  last  end  is  the  chief 
cause  of  all  his  aberrations.  At  first  sight.  Paganism 
seemed  a  mere  religion  of  terror,  which  in  disfiguring 
the  idea  of  God,  only  made  Him  more  obscure,  more 
threatening,  more  crushing  to  the  imagination  of  man. 
Nature,  which  it  proposed  as  an  object  of  adoration, 
seemed  but  a  third  force,  governed  by  no  law,  subject 
only  to  the  tremendous  caprices  which  revealed  them- 
selves in  the  lightning  flash  and  the  earthquake,  or  the 
volcanic  phenomena  of  the  Roman  Campagna.  Amidst 
the  thirty  thousand  deities  with  which  he  had  peopled 
the  world,  the  Roman,  far  from  being  confident  in  their 
protection,  was  full  of  disquietude.  Ovid  represents 
the  peasantry  assembled  before  the  image  of  Pales,  and 
the  following  is  the  prayer  which  he  makes  them 
utter  : — 

*  Lampridius,  Cominodus  Antoninus. 

4t 


82  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

"  0  goddess,  appease  for  us  the  fountains  and  their 
divinities,  appease  the  gods  dispersed  in  the  forest 
depths  ;  grant  that  we  may  meet  no  Dryads,  nor  Diana 
surprised  at  the  bath,  nor  Faunus,  when  towards  mid- 
day he  tramples  the  herbage  of  our  fields."  * 

If  the  bold  peasants  of  Latium  thus  shrank  from  an 
encounter  with  wood-nymphs,  it  is  no  marvel  that  they 
adored  Fever  and  Fear.  This  feeling  of  terror  per- 
meated the  entire  religion,  and  gave  rise  to  numberless 
sinister  rites,  and  the  machinery  in  sight  of  which 
Lucretius  might  well  say  that  fear  alone  had  made  the 
gods.  It  produced  those  frenzies  of  magic  which  were 
but  a  despairing  effort  of  man  to  resist  these  cruel  deities, 
and  conquer  them  not  by  the  moral  merits  of  prayer 
and  virtue,  but  by  the  physical  force  of  certain  acts  and 
fixed  formulas.  There  is  no  sight  stranger  but  more 
instructive  than  of  that  system  of  incantation  and 
senseless  observance  by  means  of  which  earth's  wisest 
race  sought  to  lay  nature  in  fetters  ;  t  but  which  sooner 
or  later  burst  most  terrible  in  power  through  its  bonds, 
and  took  vengeance  on  man  through  death.  As,  then, 
death  remained  the  ultimate  ruler  of  the  heathen  world, 
so  human  sacrifice  was  the  lasteflbrt  of  the  pagan  liturgy. 
It  was  principally  by  the  infernal  gods,  by  the  souls  of 
ancestors  wandering  pale  and  attenuated  around  their 
burial-place,  that  blood  was  demanded.  Under  Tar- 
quin  the  First,  children  were  sacrificed  to  Maria,  the 
mother  of  the  Lares.  In  the  brightest  age  of  the  re- 
public and  of  the  empire,  a  male  and  female  Gaul  and 
a  pair  of  Greeks  were  buried  alive  to  avert  an  oracle 

*  Ovid,  Fast.  iv.  747  et  seq. 

t  Cato,  De  re  liustica,  132,  111,   IGO  ;  Pliii.  Hist.  Nat.  lib. 


PAGANISM.  83 

which  had  promised  the  soil  of  Rome  to  the  barba- 
rians ;  the  sjDell  pronounced  over  the  heads  of  the 
victims  devoted  them  to  the  gods  of  hell  ;  and  Pliny,  a 
contemporary  of  these  cruelties,  was  only  struck  by  the 
majesty  of  the  ceremonial,  and  the  force  of  its  for- 
mulas. When  Constantine,  and  with  him  Christianity, 
had  mounted  the  imperial  throne,  the  pagan  priests  still 
offered,  year  by  year,  a  cup  of  blood  to  Jupiter  Latialis. 
Vainly  did  the  Romans  forbid  to  their  conquered  nations 
the  slaughter  of  which  they  gave  the  example,  and  in 
the  third  century  human  sacrifice  still  lingered  in  Africa 
and  Arcadia,  as  if  all  the  laws  of  civilization  were 
powerless  to  stifle  the  brutish  instincts  which  Paganism 
let  loose  in  the  depths  of  man's  fallen  nature.* 

But  mankind,  in  flying  from  the  true  good,  followed 
one  which  was  false.  The  terror  which  drove  him  from 
God  plunged  man  into  lustful  indulgence,  and  the 
religion  of  fear  became  the  sanction  of  carnal  pleasure. 
We  must  glance  at  the  excesses  of  this  error,  if  only  to 
disabuse  the  minds  who,  repelled  by  the  sternness  of 
the  Gospel,  turn  regretfully  to  antiquity,  asking  in  what 
respect  the  Roman  civilization  was  inferior  to  that  of 
Christian  times.  Though  Nature  is  constantly  affording 
a  spectacle  of  decay,  she  is  prodigal  also  in  the  prin- 
ciple of  life.  She  shows  man  that  same  power  which 
exists  in  him  for  the  perpetuation  of  his  race  and  is 
open  to  be  abused  by  him  to  his  loss,  and  exhales  from 
every  pore  a  dangerous  spell,  as  it  were,  which  is  liable 
to  cause  him  to  forget  his  spiritual  destinies.    Far  from 

*  Macrob.  Saturn,  i.  7  ;  Valor.  Max.  ii.  4,  7;  Plin.  Hist.  Nat. 
lib.  xxviii.  cap.  2;  Plutarch,  QuiEst.  Rom.  83;  Suetonius,  Vita 
Oct.  15;  Tertullian,  Apologet.  9;  Prudontius  coniia  Symraa- 
chum,  i.  555' et  seq.  ;  cf.  Tzcliirner  der  fall  dos  Heidjutliums, 
p.  54  et  seq. 


84  CIYILIZATION   IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

guarding  man  therefrom,  Paganism  plunged  his  being 
into  the  intoxications  of  sense,  and  brought  him  to 
adore  the  propagating  principle  in  nature.  Phidias 
and  Praxiteles  were  the  servants  of  its  brilliant  worship, 
and  an  obscene  symbol  was  selected  as  a  summary  of 
its  mysteries.  The  feasts  of  Bacchus  saw  it  led  in 
procession  through  the  towns  and  villages  of  Latium, 
amidst  ceremonies  in  which  matrons  of  noble  birth 
played  their  part.  Songs  and  pantomime  accompanied 
tlie  rite,  and  robbed  the  women  who  joined  in  it  of  all 
excuse  on  the  score  of  ignorance  of  its  meaning  ;*  and 
though  these  infamies  have  been  veiled  by  the  name  of 
symbolism,  doubtless  where  the  priests  placed  symbols, 
the  populace  found  incentives  and  examples.  The  gods 
were  honoured  by  imitation,  and  their  adulteries  served 
to  reassure  the  consciences  which  scrupled.  At  length, 
from  venerating  love  as  the  life-principle  which  circu- 
lated in  nature,  they  came  to  deify  the  nameless  lusts 
by  which  nature  itself  is  outraged,  and  the  immolation 
of  beauty  and  modesty  ranked  as  the  worthiest  tribute 
to  the  apotheosis  of  the  flesh.  Prostitution  became  a 
religion,  and  its  temples  at  Cyprus,  at  Samos,  and  at 
Mount  Eryx,  were  served  by  thousands  of  courtesans.! 
Lust  also  claimed  its  human  victims,  and  terror  and 
passion,  the  twin  scourges  of  the  old  society,  drove  man- 
kind to  the  same  abyss.  Far  distant  from  the  supreme 
good,  man  had  deified  the  two  forms  of  evil,  destruction 
and  corruption,  with  a  cult  of  which  self-destruction 
was  the  essence.     In  the  face  of  an  error  so  monstrous, 

*  St.  Aug.  De  Civ.  Dei,  vii.  c.  21,  24  ;  cf.  Aristoplian.  Acliarn.  ; 
of.  Ovid,  Fast,  vi.;  Iltjrodotus,  ii.  4-8. 

+  I'laiit.  Ampliitryo  ;  Terence,  Eunuch,  iii.  5;  Ovid,  Meta- 
morph.  ix.  78!};  Herodotus,  i.  12b-18'J  ;  Justin,  xviii.  5;  cf. 
Tzcliirner,  p.  10  et  soq. 


PAGANISM.  85 

of  a  worship  which  outraged  the  intellect  in  sanctioning 
murder  and  feeing  impurity,  St.  Augustine  declared  that 
Christians  honoured  human  nature  too  much  to  sup- 
pose that  she  herself  could  have  sunk  so  low,  finding  it 
more  pious  to  believe  that  the  Spirit  of  Evil  alone  had 
conceived  such  horrors,  and  had  dishonoured  man  that 
it  might  enslave  him.* 

But  these  abominations,  calculated  as  they  were  to 
raise  every  soul  against  Paganism,  helped  to  subjugate 
men  by  depraving  them,  and  thus  preserved  for  more 
than  a  century  the  dominion  of  which  the  old  religion 
had  been  robbed  by  law.  Imperial  edicts  had  pro- 
scribed the  superstitions,  dispersed  the  priests  of 
Cybele  and  the  priestesses  of  Venus,  but  all  the  lustful 
and  bloody  features  of  the  old  cult  survived  in  the 
amphitheatre.  St.  Cyprian  had  called  idolatry  the 
mother  of  the  games,  and  it  was  needful  for  a  religion, 
whose  object  it  was  to  throw  a  divine  halo  over  pleasure, 
to  lay  prompt  hold  upon  the  public  amusements.  Eome 
had  borrowed  from  Etruria  gladiatorial  combats  to 
appease  the  dead,  histrionic  dances  to  cajole  the  anger 
of  heaven.  The  Roman  people  held  its  festivals  for 
the  gods  and  its  ancestors,  and  laboured  to  reproduce  in 
symbolic  representation  the  delights  of  the  Immortals. 
The  races  of  the  Circus  signified  the  movement  of  the 
stars,  the  dances  of  the  theatre  the  voluptuous  im- 
pulses which  enslave  every  living  being.  In  the  conflicts 
of  the  amphitheatre  were  depicted  in  miniature  the 
struggles  of  humanity.!  The  dedication  of  the  Circus 
to  the  sun   was   marked  by  an   obelisk   raised  in  the 

•  St.  Aiiffiistine,  De  Civit.  Dei,  1.  vii.  c.  27,  117;  cf.  Dollinger, 
Heidentlium  und  Judentlmm,  Eng.  Trans.  Book  ix.  2-4. — (7V.) 

t  VaiTo,  cited  by  St.  Aug.  De  Civit.  Dei,  1.  iv.  c.  1  ;  ïertullian, 
De  Spectaculis,  4  ;  St.  Cyprian,  Epistola  ad  Donatum,  7  et  8. 


86  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

midst  of  tlie  enclosure  ;  on  the  line  dividing  it  were 
built  three  altars  in  honour  of  the  Cahires  ;  and  every 
column  and  monument,  as  well  as  the  post  around 
which  the  chariots  turned,  had  its  tutelary  god.  Before 
the  opening  of  the  races,  a  procession  of  priests  bore 
round  the  Circus  images  of  the  gods  reposing  on 
richly  embroidered  couches,  and  numbers  of  sacrificial 
acts  preceded,  interrupted,  and  followed  the  sports. 
When  the  napidu,  falling  from  the  hands  of  the 
magistrate,  gave  the  signal  for  the  charioteers,  the 
darlings  of  Rome,  to  enter  the  arena,  and  the  intoxi- 
cated and  panting  multitude  pursued,  with  cries  loud 
and  long,  the  chariots  which  they  favoured  or  scorned, 
divided  into  furious  factions,  and  ended  in  coming  to 
blows,  then  were  the  gods  content,  and  Romulus 
recognized  his  people— his  children,  indeed — who  had 
lost  their  world-wide  dominion,  who  were  bought  and 
sold  for  money,  but  could  still  forget  everything  in  the 
Circus,  and  find  therein,  according  to  the  expression  of 
a  contemporary  writer,  their  temple,  their  forum,  their 
country,  and  the  theme  of  all  their  hopes.  The 
Calendar  of  448  still  marked  fifty-eight  days  of  public 
games — in  that  year  of  terror  in  which  Genseric  and 
Attila  were  awaiting  in  full  panoply  the  hour  appointed 
by  Heaven.* 

The  theatre  was  the  domain  of  Venus,  for  when 
Pompey  restored  in  marble  the  wooden  benches  on 
which  the  Romans  of  old  had  sat,  he  dedicated  his 
edifice  to  the  goddess  who  perturbed  all  nature  by  the 
power  of  her  fascinations.  It  also  was  a  temple,  with  a 
garland-crowned  altar  in  the  midst,  set  apart  for  a  per- 

*  Tcrtullian,  De  Spcctaciilis,  vii.  10  ;  Ammiauus  Marcellin. 
xiv.  20;  rulein.  Sylv.  Laterculus. 


PAGANISM.  87 

formance  of  the  myths  in  which  the  gods  appeared  as 
exemplars  of  the  deepest  immorality.  It  was  there 
that  the  mimes,  youths  withered  from  infancy,  played 
in  pantomime  the  loves  of  Jupiter  or  the  frenzies  of 
Pasiphae.  But  the  prosaic  common-sense  of  the  Romans 
was  ill-content  with  the  pleasure  of  dramatic  illusion  ; 
they  spurned  a  vainly-excited  emotion,  so,  to  soothe 
their  leisure,  the  ideal  had  to  cede  to  reality  :  women 
were  dishonoured  on  the  stage,  or,  if  the  drama  was 
tragic,  the  criminal  who  played  the  part  of  Atys  was 
mutilated,  or  the  personator  of  Hercules  was  burnt. 
Martial  boasts  of  an  imperial  festival  in  which  Orpheus 
appeared  charming  the  mountains  of  Thrace  with  his 
lyre,  drawing  trees  and  rocks  after  him  enamoured  by 
his  melody,  and  finally  torn  limb  from  limb  by  a  bear, 
while  the  cries  of  the  actor,  who  thus  threw  some  life 
into  the  languor  of  the  old  tragedy,  were  drowned  by 
songs  and  dances.*  Three  thousand  female  dancers 
served  like  so  many  priestesses  the  theatres  of  Rome, 
and  were  kept  in  the  city  when,  on  the  occasion  of 
a  famine,  all  the  grammarians  were  expelled.  The 
sovereign  people  could  not  do  without  its  lovely  cap- 
tives ;  it  covered  them  with  applause  and  with  flowers, 
but  caused  them  to  uncover  their  bodies  before  the 
image  of  Flora.  Yet  the  senators  on  the  front  ranks 
showed  no  indignation,  and  the  rhetorician  Libanius 
wrote  an  apology  for  dancers  and  mimes,  justifying  them 
by  the  precedent  of  the  pleasures  of  Olympus,  and 
praising  their  continuance  of  the  education  given  to 
the  people  formerly  by  the  priest  ;  whilst  the  pagan 
party  was  powerful  enough  to  obtain  a  prohibition  of 

-  Mai-tial,  Lib.  de  Spect.  ep.  7;   cf.  DuUinger,  Heidentlium 
und  Jud^'iitlium,  Eng.  Trans,  vol.  ii.  pp.  281 — 284. — {Tr.} 


88  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

baptizing  actors,  except  in  danger  of  death,  lest  as 
Christians  they  might  escape  the  public  pleasures  of 
which  they  were  the  slaves.* 

Paganism  did  not  afford  the  gods  any  sweeter  pleasure 
than  that  of  contemplating  the  perils  of  men  from  the 
depths  of  their  own  repose,  so  the  amphitheatre  had  more 
tutelary  deities  than  the  Capitol,  and  Tertullian  could 
say  that  more  demons  than  men  assisted  at  the  spectacle. 
Diana  presided  at  the  chase,  and  Mars  at  the  combats  ; 
and  when  the  magisterial  edicts  had  sanctioned  the 
sports,  the  men  who  were  the  destined  prey  of  the  wild 
beasts  appeared  in  garments  sacred  to  Saturn,  whilst  the 
women  were  crowned  with  the  fillets  of  Ceres,  as  victims 
in  a  sacrifice.!  After  the  earth  had  been  loaded  with 
the  corpses  of  gladiators  in  one  of  these  popular  shows, 
a  gate  of  the  arena  opened  and  disclosed  two  personages, 
one  bearing  the  attributes  of  Mercury  struck  the  bodies 
with  the  end  of  his  flame- coloured  caduceus,  to  assure 
the  people  that  the  victims  no  longer  breathed,  and  the 
other,  armed  with  Pluto's  hammer,  despatched  those  who 
still  survived.  This  apparition  reminded  the  spectators 
that  they  were  assisting  at  funereal  games,  and  that  the 
blood  which  was  spilt  was  rejoicing  the  manes  of  the 
old  Komans  in  their  infernal  dwelling-place.  It  was  the 
spirit  of  Paganism  which  permeated  that  mighty  people, 
as  the  magistrates,  priests,  and  vestal  virgins  bent  in 
applause  from  the  height  of  the  Podium,  that  they 
might  do  high  honour  to  their  ancestors,  and  eighty 

*  Tertullian,  De  Spect.  10  ;  Apologetic,  15  ;  Martial,  Spectac. 
xxi.  ;  Prudeiitius,  Hymiius  do  Sancto  Komano  ;  Sidon.  Apollin. 
xiv.  0  ;  Libauius,  Oratio  pro  Saltatoribus  ;  Thcodosian  Code, 
1.  XV.  tit.  l;5,  L.  Unie.  ;  ibid.  tit.  17,  1,  5,  12  ;  Millier,  De  Ingenio, 
Moribus  et  Luxu  aeri  Tlieodosiani  ;  De  Champagny,  Monde 
Romain,  1.  ii.  p.  177  et  seq. 

f  Tertullian,  De  SpectacuHs,  12  ;  Acta  Sanctœ  Perpétuée. 


PAGANISM.  89 

thousand  spectators  joined  in  the  action  with  a  shudder 
of  joy.  The  wise  offered  no  resistance  to  tliis  brutal- 
izing of  the  mass.  Even  Cicero,  though  troubled  by  a 
momentary  scruple,  dared  not  absolutely  condemn  prac- 
tices so  rife  with  instruction  for  a  people  of  warriors  ; 
and  the  younger  Pliny,  though  a  man  of  benevolence 
and  wisdom,  congratulated  Trajan  on  having  provided 
"  no  enervating  spectacle,  but  manly  pleasures,  destined 
to  rekindle  in  the  souls  of  men  contempt  for  death  and 
pride  in  a  well-placed  wound."  Yet,  as  if  to  humiliate 
such  bloodthirsty  wisdom,  the  military  worth  of  the 
Romans  diminished  as  the  games  of  cruelty  were 
multiplied.  The  Republic  had  never  witnessed  the  suf- 
ferings of  more  than  fifty  pairs  of  gladiators  in  a  day, 
but  five  hundred  figured  in  the  games  given  by  the 
Emperor  Gordian  ;  and  the  Goths  were  at  the  very  gates 
of  Rome  as  the  prefects  were  engaged  in  supplying  the 
arena  and  finding  a  sufficient  number  of  prisoners 
ready  to  devote  themselves  for  the  pleasures  of  the 
Eternal  City.* 

Paganism  had  thus,  as  if  in  a  forlorn  hope,  taken  its 
last  stand  in  the  public  amusements.  Thence  it  defied 
the  eloquence  of  the  Fathers,  disputed  souls  with  them, 
moulded  society  after  its  own  fashion,  and  therein  it 
might  be  known  by  its  fruits.  Pagans  themselves 
acknowledged  that  the  passion  for  the  Circus  hastened 
the  decline  of  Rome,  and  that  nothing  of  mark  could 
be  expected  from  a  people  which  passed  days  in 
breathless  interest  over  the  issue  of  a  chariot  race. 
And  how  much  more  did  the  fault  lie  mth  the  theatre, 

*  Tertiillian,  Apologetic,  15;  Prudent,  contra  Symmachiim, 
lib.  i.  279;  Cicero,  Tusculan.  Quœst.  11-17  ;  Plin.  Panegyric, 
33  ;  XiphUin,  in  Trajano  :  Capitol,  in  Gorcliano  ;  cf.  De  Cliam- 
pagny,  le  Monde  Romain,  ii.  ISO  et  seq. 


90  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

and  what  eyes  could  have  borne  with  impunity  the  ges- 
tures and  scenes  in  which  Kome  found  her  recreation? 
Christian  priests  knew  the  result,  and  one  of  them 
declared  that  he  could  point  to  men  whom  the  incita- 
tions of  those  spectacles  had  torn  from  the  nuptial 
couch  and  thrown  into  the  arms  of  courtesans.  Yet 
fathers  of  families  took  their  wives  and  daughters  to 
witness  them  ;  nor  could  they  see  anything  that  the 
temple  services  had  not  already  made  familiar.  But  the 
amphitheatre  was  resistless  in  its  attractions,  and  the 
greatest  school  ever  opened  for  the  demoralization  of 
man.  Alypius,  the  friend  of  St.  Augustine,  a  philoso- 
pher, a  man  of  learning,  and  with  Christian  leanings,  was 
drawn  one  day,  through  want  of  moral  courage,  to  the 
scenes  which  his  better  nature  loathed.  At  first  he 
vowed  to  see  nothing,  and  closed  his  eyes,  when  suddenly, 
at  the  sound  of  a  death-shriek,  he  opened  and  turned 
them  upon  the  arena,  and  did  not  withdraw  them  till 
the  end.  He  drank  in  cruelty  with  the  sight  of  blood, 
quenched  his  thirst  in  the  Fury's  cup,  and  intoxicated 
his  spirit  with  the  reek  of  the  slaughter.  No  longer  the 
same  man,  he  became  like  the  most  ardent  of  that 
barbarous  crew.  He  shouted,  and  felt  his  veins  on  fire, 
and  brought  away  a  passion  to  return,  no  longer  with 
those  who  had  taken  him,  but  with  others  dragged 
thither  by  himself.  To  such  a  depth  of  irresolution, 
lust,  and  savageness  had  Paganism,  ever  corrupting  itself 
and  man  with  it,  reduced  earth's  most  civilized  people.* 
Behind  the  popular  creed  stood  Philosophy,  which 
from  having  combated  now  sought  to  defend  it,  and 
succeeded  with  sufficient  art  to  rally  around  the  old 

•  St.  Clirysostom,  Homil.  37,  in  Matthaium;  St.  Aug.  Con- 
fess, vi.  8. 


PAGANISM.  91 

religion  the  most  enlightened  members  of  Eoman  so- 
ciety. It  had  at  the  outset  announced  itself  to  be  a 
revolt  of  reason  against  Paganism,  and  our  respect  is 
due  to  those  early  sages  who  remounted  to  the  sources 
of  tradition,  to  explain  the  secrets  of  nature,  in  spite  of 
the  superstitious  terrors  which  barred  their  approach, 
and  with  still  greater  courage  busied  themselves  in  the 
solitudes  of  the  conscience,  still  desolate  from  the  lack 
of  Christian  enlightenment.  They  had  sought  the 
First  Cause  to  which  Socrates,  in  teaching  all  the  Divine 
attributes  which  Creation  makes  known,  had  nearly  ap- 
proached. But  the  mere  glimpse  of  the  True  Grod 
caused  the  thrones  of  the  false  deities  to  totter,  and 
these  philosophers,  in  exposing  the  foundations  of  the 
pagan  society,  dreaded  the  collapse  of  the  whole  super- 
structure. Loving  truth  insufl&ciently,  whilst  they  de- 
spised humanity,  they  devoted  their  genius  to  rehabili- 
tating errors  which,  as  they  said,  were  necessary  to  the 
peace  of  the  world.  Cicero  publicly  derided  the  augurs, 
but  in  tracing  the  plan  of  an  ideal  republic  in  his 
"  Treatise  on  Law,"  he  placed  therein  augurs,  whose 
decisions  were  to  be  obeyed  on  pain  of  death.  Seneca 
ridiculed  the  worship  of  idols,  but  did  not  shrink  from 
drawing  the  conclusion  that  even  the  wise  ought  to 
practise  it,  and  thus  honour  custom  and  truth.  The 
Stoics  justified  public  worship  for  reasons  of  state,  and 
protected  the  current  mythology  by  an  allegorical  in- 
terpretation.* Nature  they  defended  as  an  active  prin- 
ciple, energizing  under  many  forms,   and   which  was 

*  Cicero,  De  Legibus,  ii.  ;  De  Natnrâ  Deorum,  ii.  24  ;  Seneca, 
cited  by  St.  Augustine,  Do  Civ.  Dei.  vi.  10  ;  Diogenes,  Laert. 
vii.  147  ;  St.  Augustine,  De  Civitate  Dei,  lib  vi.  and  vii.  through- 
out; Ravaisson,  Essai  sur  la  Métaphysique  d'Aiistote,  t.  ii. 
p.  101. 


92  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

open  to  veneration  under  many  names — to  be  called 
Jupiter  in  the  life-giving  aspect,  Juno  in  the  air, 
Neptune  in  water,  or  Vulcan  in  fire — explanations 
which  were  but  as  preludes  of  the  prodigious  work  by 
which  the  school  of  Alexandria  was  to  undertake  the 
reconciliation  of  the  imperial  religion  with  reason. 

History  has  made  the  school  of  Alexandria  well 
known,  and  we  can  trace  its  rise  in  the  East,  how  it 
passed  into  the  West  and  established  a  school  at  Eome, 
which  concurred  in  the  political  restoration  of  Paganism 
set  on  foot  by  Augustus,  was  for  three  ages  upheld  by 
the  Caesars,  and  was  prolonged  to  the  fifth  century 
through  the  obstinacy  of  the  patrician  order  in  defend- 
ing its  interests  and  its  deities.  Neoplatonism  appeared 
at  Eome  under  Antoninus,  in  the  j^erson  of  Apuleius, 
a  learned  but  superstitious  and  adventurous  African, 
who  had  visited  the  schools  and  sanctuaries  of  Greece 
and  of  Etruria,  and  returned  to  travel  from  town  to 
town,  haranguing  the  people  and  laying  claim  to  a 
combination  of  the  wisdom  of  philosophers,  and  the 
piety  of  the  initiated  in  the  Mysteries.  The  Imperial 
City  admired  his  eloquence,  and  the  provinces  delighted 
in  his  opinions,  which  had  such  power  in  Africa  that 
St.  Augustine,  after  the  lapse  of  two  centuries,  de- 
voted twenty-five  chapters  of  "  The  City  of  God  "  to 
their  refutation.  Meanwhile  the  declamations  of 
Apuleius  had  prepared  men's  minds  for  a  teaching  of 
greater  gravity  and  deeper  scope.  Plotinus,  the  chief 
of  the  Alexandrian  philosophers,  came  to  Eome  in 
244,  passed  twenty-six  years  there,  and  reckoned  among 
his  auditors  senators,  magistrates,  and  matrons  of 
noble  birth,  to  whom  this  ^Egyptian  of  half-frenzied 
countenance,  who  expressed  himself  in  semi-barbarous 


PAGANISM.  93 

Greek,  seemed  a  messenger  of  the  gods.  A  praetor 
was  seen  to  lay  down  bis  fasces,  dismiss  bis  slaves,  and 
reliuquisb  bis  property,  tbat  be  migbt  abandon  bimself 
to  wisdom.  So  rapid  was  tbe  increase  of  bis  disciples, 
tbat  Plotinus  was  bold  enougb  to  demand  from  tbe 
Emperor  Gallian  a  plot  of  land  in  Campania  on  wbicb 
be  migbt  found  a  city  of  pbilosoi^bers,  to  be  governed 
by  tbe  rules  of  Plato.  Altbougb  tbe  design  failed, 
and  tbe  republic  of  sages  was  never  constituted,  yet  be 
left  bebind  bim  a  bost  of  followers,  wbo  carried  bis 
doctrines  into  tbe  senate  and  tbe  camp,  tbe  scbools  and 
tbe  social  life  of  Piome.  Porpbyry  was  tbe  most  faitbful 
and  learned  of  bis  disciples,  and  wrote  books  at  Ptome, 
in  Sicily,  and  at  Cartbage,  bis  tbree  places  of  residence, 
wbicb  were  translated  into  Latin,  finally  popularized 
tbe  Neoplatonic  views,  and  were  banded  down  into  tbe 
fiftb  century.  Under  Valentinian  III.,  Macrobius,  in 
tbe  full  blaze  of  Cbristianity,  wrote  a  commentary  on 
'•'  Scipio's  Dream,"  in  wbicb  be  found  occasion  to  set 
fortb  tbe  system  of  Plotinus  as  an  ancient  doctrine, 
common  to  tbe  first  minds  of  Greece  and  Pome,  wbetber 
poets  or  metapbysicians,  as  capable  of  reconciling  every 
scbool  of  tbougbt,  and  justifying  every  fable  of  my- 
tbolog}\  Sucb  being  tbe  propagandists  of  Neoplatonism 
in  tbe  West,  it  remains  to  note  by  wbat  occult  influence 
a  pbilosojîby  intrinsically  abstruse,  and  cbarged  witb 
Greek  subtleties,  could  seduce  tbe  good  sense  of  tbe 
Latins.* 

Tbe  contradiction  wbicb  lay  at  tbe  root  of  tbe  old 
pbilosopby  was  tbe  very  point  of  tbe  Alexandrian 
doctrines.    Beginning  witb  a  departure  from  Paganism, 

*  St.  Augustine,  De  Civit.  Dei,  viii.  and  ix.  id.  epist.  118; 
Porphyry,  De  Vita  Plotini  ;  Macrobius,  in  Somnium  Scipionis. 


y4  CIVILIZATION   IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

they  returned  to  it  by  long  byways,  charmed  the 
reason  by  a  promise  of  sublime  dogmas,  and  satisfied 
the  imagination  by  conceding  all  its  fables.  This  was 
calculated  to  soothe  many  a  spirit  tormented  by  a  double 
craving  after  faith  and  reason,  but  too  weak  to  embrace 
the  austere  belief  of  the  Christians.  Plotinus  incited 
a  society,  trembling  at  the  earliest  disasters  of  the 
Empire,  which  seemed  to  cause  all  pleasures  of  earth  to 
slip  from  their  grasp,  to  take  refuge  in  God.  It  was 
necessary,  he  said,  and  St.  Augustine  praised  the  say- 
ing, to  fly  towards  the  spiritual  abodes  in  which  dwelt 
the  Father  and  every  good  thing.  He  spared  no  effort, 
however  costly,  to  achieve  his  lofty  aim,  and  as  the 
giants  piled  mountain  on  mountain  to  reach  the  sky, 
so  did  Plotinus  labour  to  reach  a  knowledge  of  God  by 
a  fusion  of  the  three  great  systems  of  Zeno,  of  Aris- 
totle, and  of  Plato.  With  Zeno,  he  gave  to  the  world 
a  soul,  which  made  of  it  one  single  existence  ;  with 
Aristotle,  he  placed  above  the  world  an  Intelligence 
whose  sole  function  was  self-contemplation  ;  and,  with 
Plato,  he  fixed  at  the  summit  of  all  things  an  Invisible 
Principle,  which  he  called  the  One,  or  the  Good.  But 
though  he  named  it  he  pronounced  it  indefinable,  and 
so  veiled  it  from  the  gaze  of  mankind.  The  One,  the 
Intelligence,  the  World-Soul,  were  not  three  Gods,  but 
three  Hypostases  of  a  Sole  God,  who  proceeded  from 
his  unity  to  think  and  to  act.* 

As  the  three  Hypostases  produced  themselves  in 
eternity,  so  was  the  World-Soul  engendered  in  time.  It 
gave  forth  space  first,  then  the  bodies  destined  to  people 

*  St.  Aug.  De  Civit.  Dei,  1.  ix.  17  ;  Porpliyry,  De  Vit.  Tlot. 
c.  14;  riolinns,  Eiincades,  i.  1.  vi.  c.  8;  ibid.  ni.  lib.  v.  c.  4  ; 
Ravaisson,  Essai  sur  la  Mctapliysiquc  d'Aristote,  t.  ii.  ]).  381. 


PAGANISM.  95 

space,  Rucli  as  tlie  demons  and  the  constellations,  lastly 
men,  animals,  plants,  and  the  bodies  we  think  inani- 
mate. But  nothing  in  nature  is  really  inanimate,  for 
everything  lives  and  thinks  according  to  one  life  and 
one  thought  ;  for  the  Neoplatonists  saw  in  the  infinity  of 
productions  an  emanation  from  the  Divine  Substance 
communicating  itself  without  impoverishment — the  sun 
pouring  forth  a  wasteless  light,  the  fountain  which  fed 
the  river  reseeking  its  source,  and  the  whole  universe 
aspiring  to  return  to  its  primœval  unity.* 

Nor  was  the  destiny  of  man's  soul  different.  Con- 
tained at  first  in  the  Divine  Spirit,  it  had  lived  a  pure 
life  therein,  till  the  sight  of  the  world  of  matter  beneath 
tempted  it  to  essay  an  independent  existence.  Detached 
from  the  Divine  Parent,  it  fell  to  inhabiting  bodies 
formed  after  its  own  image,  and  human  life  became  a 
Fall,  of  which  the  soul  could  repent,  and  raise  herself 
so  as  to  pass  after  death  into  a  higher  sphere.  But  too 
often  she  comes  to  delight  in  her  exile,  abandons  her- 
self to  the  senses,  and,  on  reaching  death,  is  degraded 
to  animating  the  bodies  of  brutes  or  of  plants,  whose 
lives  of  sensuality  or  of  stupidity  she  had  been  imi- 
tating. Thus,  in  proportion  to  her  wallowing  in  evil, 
does  the  soul  sink  deeper  into  matter,  till  by  a  supreme 
effort  she  tears  herself  from  the  mire  and  begins  to 
aspire  ;  but,  whatever  may  be  the  length  of  probation, 
its  end  is  certain,  for  a  time  must  come  when  good 
and  e-vil  alike  shall  find  themselves  confounded  in  the 
bosom  of  the  Universal  Soul.f 


*  Plotin.  Ennead.  iv.  lib.  iv.  c.  30  ;  ibid  lib.  iii.  cap.  9,  &c.  ; 
Jules  Simon,  Histoire  de  l'École  d'Alexandrie,  t.  i.  p.  342. 

t  Plot.  Enn.  V.  1.  i.  1.  iv.  c.  4  ;  ibid.  i.  1.  il.  c.  1.  Ravaisson, 
ibid.  p.  445  ;  Jules  Simon,  ibid.  p.  589. 


96  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

This  was  assuredly  a  grand  and  elevating  doctrine. 
When  it  spoke  of  a  Supreme  God,  and  declared  Him 
to  he  One,  Immaterial,  and  Impassible,  it  seemed  as 
if  nothing  were  left  but  to  break  the  old  idols.  Some 
of  these  doctrines  surprised  Christians,  who  thought 
them  to  have  been  pilfered  from  the  Gospel,  as  some, 
nowadays,  have  accused  Christianity  of  enriching  itself 
from  the  spoils  of  Neoplatonism.  Yet,  without  denjdng 
that  something  might  have  been  borrowed  from  the 
new  religion,  published  two  ages  before,  all  the  specu- 
lations of  Alexandria  had  their  issue  in  Paganism. 
The  Principle  placed  by  Plotinus  at  the  summit  of  all 
things  had  nothing  in  common  with  the  God  of  the 
Christians.  They  acknowledged  in  the  First  Cause 
perfections  which  brought  Him  near  to  the  intellect 
and  to  the  heart  ;  he  robbed  his  First  Principle  of 
every  attribute,  denied  him  thought  and  life,  forbade 
either  definition  or  affirmation  concerning  him.  His 
god  was  an  abstraction,  which  could  neither  be  known 
nor  loved,  an  illogical  and  immoral  being — fit  character 
for  the  deities  of  Paganism.  A  similar  abyss  separated 
the  trinity  of  Plotinus  from  our  own,  in  which  the 
Unity  of  Nature  subsists  through  the  equality  of  Three 
Persons,  whereas  the  philosopher  destroyed  the  Divine 
One-ness  in  his  three  unequal  Hypostases.  In  his 
scheme,  the  First  Principle  alone  was  perfect  and  in- 
divisible ;  the  second  and  third  detached  themselves 
from  it  by  a  sort  of  deterioration,  and  leant  towards 
the  imperfect  world  which  they  had  engendered.  Nor 
was  this  divided  god  a  free  agent,  but  produced  by 
necessity,  by  the  inevitable  outflow  of  his  Substance, 
a  world  as  eternal  as  himself.  The  Pantheism  of 
Plotinus  deified  matter  and  justified  magic,  because,  as 


PAGANISM.  97 

he  said,  the  philtres  aud  formulas  of  the  magician  tend 
to  reawaken  the  attractions  whereby  the  Universal  Soul 
governs  all  things  ;  and  it  sanctioned  idolatry  because 
the  sculptor's  chisel,  in  causing  marble  to  assume  a 
character  of  expression  and  beauty,  j)repares  for  the 
Supreme  Soul  a  receptacle  in  which  she  reposes  with 
greater  satisfaction.* 

Such  was  the  issue  of  the  boldest  flight  of  meta- 
physics in  the  old  school,  and  its  accompanying 
morality  proceeded  to  the  same  extremities.  Since 
it  was  the  property  of  the  divine  nature  to  produce 
and  animate  everything,  the  human  souls  which  it 
had  generated  could  not  arrest  their  own  descent  to 
matter.  In  their  first  fall  there  was  no  free  will,  and, 
consequently,  no  moral  guilt.  If  new  sins  caused  them 
to  sink  lower,  this  was  but  necessary  to  people  the 
lower  regions  of  the  Universe,  and  fill  the  ladder  of 
emanations  to  its  last  degrees.  Evil  thus  became 
necessary,  or,  rather,  evil  only  existed  as  a  lesser  good 
in  the  succession  of  existences  that  were  farther  and 
farther  removed  from  the  divine  perfection  which  had 
produced  and  was  to  reabsorb  them.  An  ultimate 
reception  into  the  Unity,  in  utter  unconsciousness  of 
their  past,  was  thus  to  be  the  end  of  both  the  just  and 
of  the  unjust.  Plotinus  therefore  returned,  through 
the  doctrine  of  Metempsychosis,  to  the  old  fables,  and 
though  severe  in  his  personal  character,  disarmed 
morality  by  a  suppression  of  the  idea  of  individual 
permanence,  without   which    a   future    life    aftbrds   in 

+  Plot.  Enn.  III.  viii.  9;  ibid.  vi.  \'iii.  7;  ibid.  ix.  f>  ;  ibid. 
ix.  4;  ibid.  iv.  iv.  40  :  ibid.  iii.  11.  M.  Ravaisson  has  clearly 
brought  out  the  points  on  which  the  doctrine  of  Plotinus  departed 
from  Christian  thought,  and  was  lost  in  pagan  naturalism. 
Essai  sm-  la  Métaphysique  d'Aristote,  t.  ii.  p.  405. 

VOL.    I.  5 


98  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

prospect  neither  hope  nor  fear  ;  whilst  the  doctrine  of 
the  emanation  of  the  soul  from  the  Divine  Suhstance 
tended  to  that  worst  form  of  idolatry,  the  deification 
of  man.  The  essence  of  Paganism  was  breathed  forth 
in  the  haughty  satisfaction  with  which  the  dying 
philosopher  answered  one  of  his  disciples;  "I  am 
labouring,"  said  he,  "  to  disengage  the  divine  element 
within  me."*  In  looking  closely  at  the  distinctive 
dogmas  of  Plotinus,  his  unrevealed  unity,  and  im- 
perfect trinity,  the  emanations  which  composed  the 
substance  of  the  Universe,  the  fall  and  rise  of  souls, 
we  see  traces  of  the  mysteries  of  an  old  theosophy 
long  prevalent  in  the  East.  The  Etruscans  had  com- 
municated it  to  the  ancient  Romans,  and  their 
descendants  of  the  Decline  might  have  recognized 
with  surprise,  in  the  writings  of  the  Egyptian  philo- 
sopher, doctrines  which  formed  the  basis  of  the 
national  religion.  They  saw  them  now  clothed  in 
eloquence,  fortified  by  the  subtleties  of  logic,  brightened 
by  the  fires  of  mysticism  ;  but  the  Neoplatonists  gave 
them,  besides,  sufficient  justification  for  the  rest  of 
their  creed,  even  to  its  most  extravagant  fables. 
Thus  Apuleius  had  distinguished  the  incorporeal  deities 
who  were  incapable  of  passion  from  the  daemons  en- 
dowed with  subtle  bodies,  but  having  souls  full  of 
human  feeling  ;  and  mythology  had  taken  refuge  in 
the  distinction.!  It  was  no  longer  the  gods,  but 
daemons,  who  loved  the  odours  of  sacrifices,  whom 
the  poets  had  brought  upon  the  scene,  whom  Homer 
had,  without  profanation,  introduced  on  the  battle- 
field.    Porphyry   imagined  thousands  of  explanations 

=!=  Porphyry,  De  Vita  Plotini. 

f  Apuleius,  De  Deo  Socratis,  3,  C,  7,  14. 


PAGANISM.  99 

for  the  myths  of  Egj-pt  and  of  Greece,*  and  Macrobius 
made  it  his  one  aim  to  justify  the  old  fables  through 
philosophy  ;  "  for,"  said  he,  "  the  knowledge  of  things 
sacred  is  veiled  ;  nature  loves  not  to  be  surprised  in 
her  nudity.  When  Numenius  betrayed,  by  a  rash 
interpretation,  the  mysteries  of  Eleusis,  we  are  told 
that  the  outraged  goddesses  appeared  to  him  in  the 
guise  of  courtesans,  and  accused  him  of  having  drawn 
them  from  their  shrines,  and  made  them  public  to  the 
passers-by  :  for  the  gods  have  ever  loved  to  reveal 
themselves  to  men,  and  to  serve  them  under  the 
fabulous  features  in  w'hich  antiquity  has  presented 
them."t  The  Neoplatonists  were  equally  ingenious 
in  rehabilitating  the  observances  which  shocked  the 
reason  or  outraged  nature.  Plotinus,  being  more  of  a 
philosopher  than  a  theologian,  had  only  justified  the 
old  superstitions  incidentally  ;  but  his  disciples,  im- 
patient of  the  hesitating  methods  of  philosophy,  craved 
for  a  speedier  commerce  with  heaven  by  means  of 
theurgy,  by  sacrifices,  spells,  and  magical  arts.  Jam- 
blichus  wrote  a  proof  of  the  divinity  of  the  idols, 
undertook  the  defence  of  Venus  and  Priapus,  and 
approved  the  veneration  of  the  obscene  symbols.  The 
Emperor  Julian  professed  to  reform  Paganism.  He 
could,  with  a  word,  have  shorn  it  of  its  abominations, 
but  he  authorized  the  mutilation  of  the  priests  of 
Cybele,  "for  thus  does  it  behove  us,"  he  said,  "to 
honour  the  Mother  of  the  Gods."+  The  most  learned 
plunged   deepest    into   superstition,    and   men    whose 


*  Poi-pliyiy,  De  Antro  Nympliarum. 
+  Macroljius,  in  Somnium  Scipionis,  1.  i.  c.  2. 
Z  Jamblichus,    De   Mystems,  sect.  i.  c.    11  ;    Jules    Simon, 
Histoire  de  l'Ecole  d'Alexandrie,  t.  i. 

5  * 


100  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

minds  had  fed  on  Plato  and  Aristotle,  wasted  tlieir 
vigils  in  the  hope  of  evoking  at  their  will  gods, 
daemons,  and  departed  souls  :  or,  assembled  round  a 
vervein-garlanded  tripod,  questioned  fate  as  to  the  end 
of  the  emperor  and  his  destined  successor.  Thus  was 
the  prophec}^  of  St.  Paul  accomplished,  and  the  heirs 
of  that  Alexandrian  philosophy  which  professed  to  have 
gathered  up  the  scattered  lights  of  antiquity  only 
restored  its  frenzies  of  vice. 

In  this  manner  was  heathenism  reinvigorated  by  the 
Neoj^latonists,  precisely  as  was  congruous  to  a  worn- 
out  society,  tired  of  doubt,  incapable  of  faith,  but  a  prey 
to  every  superstition  which  was  offered  to  it.  From 
the  pagan  aristocracy,  whose  views  they  seconded, 
their  welcome  was  assured,  and  their  school  of  philo- 
sophy, which  had  blossomed  into  a  religious  sect, 
became  the  bulwark  of  a  political  party.  In  fact,  the 
senatorial  families  who  were  attached  to  the  old  creed 
had  not  followed  the  court  to  Constantinople,  Milan, 
or  Piavenna,  but  remained  at  Rome,  to  adorn  with 
their  patrician  majesty  the  capital  which  the  Csesars 
had  repudiated.  In  it  at  least  they  hoped  to  guard 
the  sacred  hearth  of  the  Empire,  and  avert  the  anger 
of  the  gods  by  their  fidelity  to  the  ancient  rites.  They 
drew  to  their  side  and  covered  with  patronage  and 
applause  the  men  who  defended  by  their  learning  the 
old  interests  and  the  old  altars.  By  the  aid  of  an 
allegorical  interpretation  the  nobility  tasted  the  sweet- 
ness of  believing  otherwise  than  the  common  people, 
and  yet  preserving  the  customs  of  their  ancestors  ; 
whilst,  strong  in  the  teaching  of  Porphyry  and  Macro- 
bius,  they  looked  with  pity  on  the  mad  crowd  who 
were  drawn  to  Baptism,  and  cared  not  to  conceal  their 


PAGANISM.  101 

contempt  for  the  Christian  rulers,  to  whose  charge 
the}"  laid  all  the  disasters  of  the  state.  Disquieted 
within,  bearing  a  threatening  attitude  to  those  without, 
the  pagan  world  looked  to  them  as  champions,  who, 
looking  again  to  the  future,  were  ready  to  support  any 
ruler  who  would  resume  Julian's  incompleted  task. 
At  court  they  had  followers  of  mark  enough  to  gain 
the  highest  dignities  of  the  state  ;  from  the  offices  of 
the  priesthood  they  drew  a  certain  amount  of  influence 
and  a  considerable  revenue  ;  their  palaces  comprised 
whole  towns,  and  their  demesnes  were  provinces  from 
which  they  could  summon  at  will  an  army  of  slaves 
and  clients  ;  and  by  the  public  games  which  they  pro- 
vided they  wielded  their  last  weapon  for  kindling  the 
passions  of  the  people.  At  the  opening  of  the  fifth 
century,  the  best  representation  of  the  Roman  aristo- 
cracy, the  man  best  fitted  to  grace  it  by  his  eloquence 
and  learning,  was  Symmachus,  the  prefect  of  Rome. 
His  versatile  genius,  capable  alike  in  the  sphere  of 
politics  as  in  that  of  learning,  was  the  wonder  of  his 
contemporaries  ;  and  men  of  taste,  comparing  his  letters 
to  those  of  Pliny,  desired  to  see  them  WTitten  on  rolls 
of  silk.  He  had  sung  of  the  \ine-clad  volcanoes  of 
Baiae  in  graceful  verse,  and  taken  a  high  rank  among 
orators  by  right  of  his  panegp'ics,  in  which  he  had 
exhausted  on  Christian  princes  the  language  of  idolatry. 
So  active  an  intellect  could  not  but  live  in  close  rela- 
tion to  the  finest  wits  of  the  time.  In  his  letters  to 
Ausonius  he  compared  him  to  Virgil,  and  the  poet's 
reply  put  Symmachus  side  by  side  with  Cicero.  He 
was  the  chosen  patron  of  all  new  lectures  and  decla- 
mations. One  day  he  was  observed  in  high  spirits 
at  having  just  been  present  at  the   first   appearance 


102  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

of  the  rhetorician  Palladius,  who  had  charmed  the 
auditory  hy  his  florid  eloquence  ;  another  time,  when 
the  city  of  Mihm  had  appHed  to  him  for  a  professor  of 
eloquence,  he  sent  for  a  young  African  noted  for  his 
learning  and  genius,  proposed  him  a  subject,  heard 
with  approval,  and  dispatched  him  to  Milan.  The 
youth  was  Augustine,  and  Symmachus  little  knew  the 
injury  he  was  doing  to  his  gods  in  sending  such  a 
disciple  to  the  Bishop  Ambrose.  His  well-founded 
authority  in  literature  was  enhanced  by  his  brilliant 
political  position.  Successively  governor  of  Lucania, 
proconsul  of  Africa,  prefect  of  Rome,  and  lastly 
consul,  as  a  versatile  politician  but  pure  adminis- 
trator, Symmachus  had  become  the  crown  of  the 
Roman  nobility,  and  the  soul  of  that  senate  which  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  name  the  best  part  of  the  human 
race.  He  beheld  in  it  the  last  asylum  of  the  doctrines 
to  which  he  had  devoted  all  his  genius  and  all  his 
fame.  Like  the  patricians  of  old,  whose  example  he 
followed,  he  aspired  to  reunite  all  religious  and  civil 
honours  in  his  own  person,  and  add  the  fillets  of  the 
priest  to  the  fasces  of  the  consul.  To  his  post  in  the 
college  of  pontiffs  he  brought  a  scrupulous  ardour 
which  withered  the  timidity  of  his  colleagues,  and 
groaning  over  the  abandonment  of  the  sacrifices,  was 
as  eager  to  appease  the  gods  by  victims  as  to  defend 
them  by  the  powers  of  his  eloquence. 

This  zealous  pagan,  so  justly  respected  for  his  learn- 
ing, certainly  merited  to  be  the  spokesman  of  the 
cause  of  polytheism  when  it  made  its  last  public 
protest  in  demanding  the  restoration  of  the  altar  of 
victory.  This  altar  had  stood  in  the  midst  of  the 
senate  house,  had  given  it  the  character  of  a  temple, 


PAGANISM.  103 

and  served  to  recall  the  ancient  theocratic  system  of 
law  and  the  alliance  of  Rome  with  the  gods.  The 
Christian  emperors  had  removed  it  as  a  scandal,  and 
the  pagan  senators  declared  that  they  could  no  longer 
deliberate  in  a  place  which  had  been  thus  profaned, 
and  shorn  of  the  auspices  of  the  divinity  who,  for 
twelve  hundred  years,  had  preserved  the  Empire. 
S}Tnmachus  took  charge  of  the  complaint,  and  showed 
in  his  protest  how  much  faith  the  mind  of  an  idolater 
could  preserve.  His  eloquent  plaint  began  and  ended 
in  scepticism,  and  in  face  of  the  religious  differences 
which  sundered  his  contemporaries,  his  view  grew  dark 
and  uncertain. 

"  Every  one,"  said  he,  "  has  his  peculiar  custom  and 
rite  ;  surely  it  is  just  to  recognize  one  and  the  same 
di^•iuity  beneath  these  different  forms  of  adoration. 
We  contemplate  the  same  stars,  the  same  heaven  is 
common  to  both,  and  we  are  enfolded  by  the  same 
earth.  What  does  the  manner  matter  in  which  each 
seeks  for  truth  ?  One  sole  way  cannot  suffice  for 
arriving  at  that  great  mystery  ;  and  yet  how  healthy 
are  such  disputes  for  the  slothful."* 

This  revealed  the  hidden  sore  of  paganism,  and 
showed  that  the  efforts  of  philosophy  had  only  issued 
in  a  declaration  of  the  inaccessibility  of  truth.  Yet 
the  spirits  which  were  too  worn  out  for  faith  had  force 
left  still  for  persecution  ;  and  the  same  Symmachus, 
who  was  so  uncertain  about  the  gods,  to  whom  the 
supreme  reason  of  things  was  veiled  by  an  eternal 
mist,  who  deemed  religious  controversy  an  unworthy 
waste  of  a  statesman's  time,  hunted  down  with  inde- 

*  Villemain,  Tableau  de  l'Eloquence  Chrétienne  au  Quatrième 
Siècle  ;  SjTnmach.  1.  x.  epist.  (il. 


104  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

fatigable  energy  a  vestal  who  had  fallen.  He  consulted 
with  the  imperial  officers,  importuned  the  prefect  of 
the  city  and  the  president  of  the  province,  and  took  no 
repose  until  he  had  seen  the  culprit  buried  alive, 
according  to  the  custom  of  his  ancestors  ;  for  the 
bloody  instincts  of  his  creed  were  preserved  as  fresh 
beneath  the  robe  of  the  senator  and  the  polish  of  the 
man  of  culture  as  beneath  the  rags  of  the  populace 
who  crowded  the  amphitheatre.  In  a.d.  402,  Sym- 
machus  desired  to  celebrate  his  son's  praetorship  by 
games,  and  before  the  time  fixed  had  drained  the 
provinces  of  their  rarest  products  in  the  way  of  race- 
horses, wild  beasts,  comedians,  and  gladiators  ;  but 
amidst  these  cares  an  unlooked-for  calamity  overtook 
him,  which  he  confided  in  a  letter  to  Flavian,  his 
friend.  All  the  philosophy  of  Socrates  was  not  enough, 
he  said,  to  console  him  for  twenty-nine  of  the  Saxon 
prisoners  whom  he  had  purchased  for  the  arena  having 
impiously  strangled  themselves  rather  than  serve  the 
pastimes  of  the  sovereign  people.* 

Such  was  the  efi"ect  of  heathen  wisdom  on  a  naturally 
upright  and  benevolent  soul  in  the  fifth  century,  that 
advanced  age  in  the  world's  life,  bright  moreover  with 
all  the  lights  of  antiquity.  A  contemporary  historian, 
himself  a  pagan,  has  undertaken  a  general  description 
of  the  aristocracy,  and  represents  the  last  guardians  of 
the  traditions  of  Numa  as  no  longer  believing  in  the 
gods,  but  not  daring  to  dine  or  bathe  before  the 
astrologer  had  assured  them  of  the  favour  of  the 
planets.  The  sons  of  those  Komans  who  had  gone 
forth  with  the  eagle's  flight,   as  it  were,  to  conquest 

•!=  SjTiimach.  lib.  ix.  epist.  128,  129  ;  lib.  xi.  epist.  46. 


PAGANISM.  105 

under  the  frigid  or  the  torrid  zone,  thought  they  had 
rivalled  the  doings  of  Caesar  if  they  coasted  the  bay  of 
Baiœ,  cradled  in  a  sumptuous  bark,  fanned  by  boys, 
and  declaring  life  unbearable  if  a  ray  of  sun  stole 
through  the  awning  spread  overhead.  They  exposed 
to  public  gaze  all  the  infamy  of  their  domestic  orgies, 
and  appeared  abroad  surrounded  by  a  legion  of 
slaves,  headed  by  a  troop  of  youths  who  had  been 
mutilated  for  their  hideous  pleasures.  What  respect 
could  these  voluptuaries  have  for  their  fellow-creatures? 
Little  did  they  recognize  the  sanctity  which  lies  in  the 
blood  and  tears  of  men,  and  whilst  they  had  only  a 
laugh  for  the  clever  slave  who  skilfully  killed  his 
fellow,  they  condemned  another  to  the  rods  who  had 
made  them  wait  for  hot  water.* 

Such  men  as  these  loved  the  creed  which  left  their 
vices  at  peace.  In  despair  of  truth  they  only  asked  for 
repose  in  error,  and  St.  Augustine  had  sounded  the 
depth  of  their  hearts,  or  rather  of  their  passions, 
when  he  put  into  their  mouths  this  language,  that 
of  materialists  of  every  age  : — "  What  matter  to  us 
truths  which  are  not  to  be  reached  by  human  reason  ? 
What  is  of  importance  is  that  the  State  should  stand, 
should  be  rich,  and,  above  all,  tranquil.  What  touches 
us  supremely  is  that  public  prosperity  should  serve  to 
augment  the  wealth  which  keeps  the  great  in  splen- 
dour, the  small  in  comfort,  and,  consequently,  in 
submission.  Let  the  laws  ordain  nothing  irksome, 
forbid  nothing  that  is  agreeable  ;  let  the  ruler  secure 
his  people's  obedience  by  showing  himself  no  gloomy 
censor  of  their  morals,  but  the  purveyor  of  their  plea- 
sures ;  let  the  markets  teem  with  beautiful  slaves  ;  let 

*  Ammian.  Maxcellin.  xiv.  G  ;  xxviii.  4. 

5  I 


106  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

the  palaces  be  sumptuous  and  banquets  frequent,  at 
v/hicli  every  one  may  gorge,  drink,  and  vomit  till  day- 
break ;  everywhere  let  the  sound  of  dancing  be  heard 
and  joyous  applause  break  over  the  benches  of  the 
theatre  ;  let  those  gods  be  held  true  who  have  assured  us 
such  happiness  ;  give  them  the  worship  they  prefer,  the 
games  they  delight  in,  that  they  may  enjoy  themselves 
with  their  adorers.  We  pray  them  only  to  make  our 
felicity  lasting,  that  we  may  have  no  cause  for  fear  from 
plague  or  foe."* 

But  the  foe  was  at  the  gate,  and  the  hour  approach- 
ing in  which  doctrines  which  had  been  handed  down 
from  school  to  school,  and  found  their  place  in  the 
Eoman  senate,  were  to  undergo  their  supreme  probation 
before  the  barbarians,  that  the  world  might  see  what 
philosophic  Paganism  could  do  towards  saving  the 
Empire,  or,  at  least,  making  its  fall  dignified.  In 
A.D.  408,  Alaric  presented  himself  before  Eome,  and  the 
smoke  of  the  enemy's  camp  could  be  seen  from  the 
temple  of  the  Capitolian  Jupiter.  At  this  pressing 
moment  the  first  act  of  the  senate,  assembled  in  delibe- 
ration, was  to  put  to  death  Serena,  the  widow  of  Stilicho 
and  niece  of  Theodosius — a  victim  whom  the  gods 
required  ;  for  it  was  said  that  this  sacrilegious  Chris- 
tian had  once  entered  the  Temple  of  Cybele  and  carried 
off  the  necklace  from  the  image.  Serena  was  strangled 
after  the  old  fashion  {more  majorum),  but  that  last 
human  sacrifice  did  not  save  her  country.  Alaric 
demanded  all  the  gold,  silver,  and  precious  stones  of 
the  city,  and  only  left  the  Romans  their  dishonoured 
lives  ;  whereupon  the  prefect,  Pompeianus,  caused  the 
Etruscan  priests,  who  boasted  of  having  saved  the  little 
*  St.  Aug.  Dc  Civitate  Dei,  ii.  20. 


PAGANISM.  107 

town  of  Nurcia  by  tlieir  spells,  to  be  siimmoiiecl,  and 
they  undertook  to  bring  down  fire  from  heaven  upon 
the  barbarians,  but  on  condition  that  public  sacrifice 
should  be  offered  at  the  public  expense  in  presence  of 
the  senate,  and  with  all  the  pomp  of  past  ages.  Such 
an  open  infringement  of  the  imperial  edicts  was  dreaded 
by  the  senate,  and  as  at  the  same  time  Alaric  modified 
his  conditions,  the  ransom  of  Rome  was  fixed  at  6,000 
pounds  of  gold  and  30,000  of  silver.  The  patrician 
families  charged  themselves  with  its  payment  ;  but  as 
the  money  in  their  treasuries  did  not  suffice,  it  was 
necessary  to  seize  the  gold  in  the  temples  ;  so  they 
robbed  the  gods  they  had  been  defending  of  their 
ornaments,  and  as  the  weight  required  was  not  yet 
forthcoming,  melted  down  several  of  their  images,  and 
amongst  them  the  statue  of  Valour  {Virtutis).* 

There  is  something  truly  pathetic  in  this  catastrophe 
of  a  mighty  religion  ;  and  could  one  forget  all  the  error 
which  was  mingled  in  its  teaching,  all  the  crime  which 
found  sanction  in  its  practice,  it  would  be  impossible  to 
regard  without  emotion  the  believers  who  clung  to  it, 
motionless  at  the  altars  of  their  gods,  showing  some 
remnant,  if  not  of  the  energy,  at  least  of  the  obstinacy, 
of  the  Roman  character.  We,  without  justifying  their 
stubbornness,  must  consider  the  inevitable  perplexity  of 
the  mind  balanced  between  two  hostile  creeds,  and 
especially  now  that  their  faith  required  a  struggle. 
This  was  in  the  mind  of  the  Fathers  as,  acknowledging 
the  painful  process  by  which  souls  are  conquered,  they 
exclaimed,  "Non  nascuntur  seel  fiunt  Christiani!" 
But  we  must  not,  on  the  other  hand,  by  an  unjust 
parallel,  compare  the  ruin  of  the  fifth  century  with 
*  Zosimus,  Hist.  v.  38-41. 


108  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

the  confusion  of  our  own  time,*  or  place  the  pagan 
collapse  in  the  same  category  with  the  supposed  decline 
of  Christian  civilization.  History  does  not  halt  to 
point  to  apparent  recurrences  of  events,  knowing  that 
in  our  softness  we  always  exaggerate  the  evils  of  the 
present  time,  and  find  our  vanity  flattered  in  surpass- 
ing the  misfortunes  of  our  ancestors.  Civilization,  it 
tells  us,  cannot  perish  through  passions  which  it  cor- 
rects, nor  by  institutions  which  it  may  modify,  but  by 
doctrines  which  an  inflexible  logic  impels  to  their 
results.  History  points  to  a  difference  in  favour  of  our 
age  which  may  reassure  the  most  fearful  ;  for  our 
Christianity  does  not  distinguish,  like  the  heathen 
philosophy,  between  the  religion  of  higher  minds  and 
that  of  the  people,  nor  found  the  peace  of  the  world 
upon  a  system  of  necessary  falsehood.  It  does  not, 
like  Plotinus,  under  the  guise  of  a  pantheistic  prin- 
ciple, practically  deify  matter,  and  issue  in  governing 
nations  through  their  interests  and  their  pleasures 
{panem  et  circenses),  which  is  pure  political  mate- 
rialism. Christianity  especially  does  not  profess,  with 
Symmachus,  doubt  or  indifférence  on  the  momentous 
questions  of  God,  the  soul,  and  futurity;  but  as  long 
as  it  can  give  an  answer  at  once  supremely  authori- 
tative and  supremely  reasonable  to  these  problems, 
nothing  is  really  lost,  for  the  truths  of  eternity  do 
not  let  fall  those  societies  in  time  which  are  of  their 
own  moulding,  and  the  invisible  is  the  sustaining 
influence  of  that  visible  civilization  in  which  it  reveals 
itself. 

t-  These  lectures  wore  delivered  at  the  time  of  tlie  last  French 
Revolution. — (ÏV.) 


109 


CHAPTER   IV. 

THE    FALL    OF    PAGANISM,    AND    WHETHER    ITS    FALL    WAS    ENTIRE. 

We  have  seen  by  what  an  inexorable  necessity 
Paganism  led  the  aristocracy  of  Rome  to  degradation, 
her  people  to  barbarism,  and  her  empire  to  destruc- 
tion. If  regenerated  humanity  was  to  subsist,  the  old 
order  must  perish,  and  it  is  our  object  now  to  consider 
the  manner  of  its  fall,  and  whether  its  extinction  was 
complete.  Paganism  did  not  succumb,  as  has  often 
been  supposed,  to  the  laws  of  the  Emperors,  nor  did 
Constantine,  when,  in  a.d.  312,  he  gave  liberty  to  the 
Christians,  desire  them  to  turn  the  sword  upon  their 
foes  of  the  old  religion.  A  later  edict,  which  seems 
entirely  modern  in  its  principle,  promised  to  the 
heathens  the  same  tolerance  as  was  afforded  to  the 
faithful.  "  For,"  as  it  said,  "  it  is  one  thing  to  engage 
in  mental  conflicts  in  order  to  conquer  heaven,  another 
to  employ  force  to  coerce  conviction."  Notwithstand- 
ing the  instigation  of  the  Arians,  who  were  interested 
in  laying  violent  hands  upon  the  conscience,  and  certain 
edicts  of  Constantius  against  superstition.  Paganism 
continued  in  possession  of  its  liberties  and  privileges 
until  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  when  the  menacing 
attitude  of  its  professors,  and  their  eager  rallying  round 
any  usurper,  elicited  a  sterner  legislation.  Two  laws 
of    Theodosius,    and   four   of    Honorius,   effected    the 


110  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUKY. 

closing  of  the  temples,  by  suppressing  their  revenues 
and  forbidding  their  sacrifices.  These  seemed  crushing 
blows  to  idolatry,  but  St.  Augustine  attests  that  in 
Africa  the  idols  remained  standing,  and  that  their  wor- 
shippers were  powerful  enough  to  burn  a  church  and 
slaughter  sixty  Christians.  In  spite  of  the  imperial 
edicts,  there  was  no  case  known  of  pagans  being  con- 
demned and  punished  by  death  for  the  sake  of  religion; 
and  the  Imperial  line  was  about  to  end,  but  poly- 
theism was  destined  to  survive  it,  as  if  to  prove  that  ideas 
are  not  to  be  slain  by  the  sword,  and  that  even  false 
doctrine  is  more  durable  than  the  powers  of  earth.* 

Paganism,  then,  perished  by  the  two  weapons  of  con- 
troversy and  charity.  The  controversy  on  both  sides 
was  loud  and  free,  and  was  prolonged  in  the  East  until 
a  decree  of  Justinian  closed  the  schools  of  Athens  ; 
whilst  in  the  West  Ammianus,  Claudian,  and  Rutilius 
calumniated  with  impunity  the  new  religion,  and  its 
saints  and  monks.  The  old  cult  was  entrenched  behind 
the  consent  of  antiquity,  and  struggled  to  retain  its 
hold  over  the  mind  by  every  art  which  was  calculated  to 
touch  it,  by  the  subtlety  of  philosophic  interpretation,  the 
majesty  of  its  ritual,  the  charm  of  its  mythology,  whilst 
it  enlisted  every  human  interest  and  passion  against  the 
Gospel.  Then,  as  ever,  it  reproached  Christianity  with 
hatred  of  the  human  race,  in  other  words,  its  contempt 
of  the  world,  with  an  avoidance  of  the  public  pleasures, 
and  the  incompatibility  of  its  laws  with  the  maxims 
and  manners  which  had  built  up  the  greatness  of  Rome. 

*  Eusebius,  De  Vita  Constantini,  ii.  56  ;  Cod.  Theodos.  1.  xvi. 
tit.  10  ;  De  Paganis  Sacriticiis  et  Templis,  ii.,  2,  4,  5,  6,  9,  10,  12, 
13,  14,  IG,  &c.  ;  St.  August,  epist.  50,  Senioribus  Colonise  Suffec- 
tanse,  epist.  91,  Nectario  ;  Beugnot,  Histoii-e  de  la  Chute  du 
Paganisme  en  Occident. 


THE    FALL    OF    PAGANISM.  Ill 

By  it  calamity  had  befallen  the  Empire  whose  frontiers 
had  been  delivered  to  the  barbarians  by  the  outraged 
gods,  and  heaven  kept  back  its  very  rain  on  account  of 
the  Christians.     Pluvia  desit  causa  Christiani.*- 

The  Christian  apologist  answered  with  inimitable 
equity  and  vigour,  refusing  in  the  first  place  to  condemn 
entirely  the  old  civilization,  acknowledging  a  modicum 
of  truth  in  the  doctrines  of  the  philosophers,  of  good  in 
the  Roman  legislation,  and,  as  we  shall  see  hereafter, 
preserving  the  literature  whilst  they  rejected  the  fables 
of  antiquity  with  a  thorough  discernment, — thus  doing 
honour  to  the  human  mind,  and  teaching  it  to  recognize 
the  divine  ray  within  it.  Having  thus  rubbed  off  the 
polish  of  Paganism,  they  presented  it  to  the  eyes  of  the 
people,  naked  and  bloodstained,  in  the  full  horror  of 
its  impure  and  murderous  observances  ;  instead  of  the  « 
glosses  which  are  so  pleasing  to  our  modern  delicacy, 
instead  of  explaining  away  the  crime  of  idolatry  by 
acknowledging  it  as  a  necessary  error,  the  apologists 
kindled  conscience  against  a  hateful  worship  by  showing 
in  it  the  work  of  the  devil  and  the  reflexion  of  hell. 
This  system  of  argument,  at  once  full  of  charity 
towards  human  reason,  but  without  pity  for  Paganism, 
was  presented  in  its  entirety  in  the  writings  of  St. 
Augustine. f 

The  Bishop  of  Hippo  had  become  the  light  of  the 
universal  Church  ;  Asia  and  Gaul  pressed  him  with 
questions  ;  the  Manichœans,  Donatists,  and  Pelagians 

*  Symmach.  epist.  16;  St.  Augustine,  De  Civit.  Dei,  lib.  i. 
cap.  1  et  seqq. 

t  St.  Justiii,  Apolog.  1  et  2  ;  Minutius  Felix,  Recenseamus,  si 
placet,  disciplinas  pliilosoplioram,  deprehendes  eos,  etsi  sermonibus 
variis,  ipsis  tameu  rebus  in  banc  unani  coii'e  et  consph-are  sen- 
tentiam. 


112  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTUKY. 

left  him  no  repose.  But  it  was  the  pagan  controversy 
which  absorbed  his  life,  overflowed  into  his  letters,  and 
inspired  his  greatest  works.  In  a.d.  412,  Africa  was 
governed  by  Volusian,  a  man  of  noble  birth,  and  attached 
to  the  old  religion,  who  was  drawn  towards  the  Church 
by  the  genius  of  Augustine,  but  brought  back  to  his 
superstitions  by  the  idolatrous  examples  all  around  him. 
One  day,  as  he  was  whiling  away  his  leisure  in  conver- 
sation with  some  men  of  letters,  had  touched  on  many 
points  of  philosophy,  and  deplored  the  contradictions  of 
the  sects,  the  discussion  turned  upon  Christianity. 
Volusian  set  forth  his  objections,  and  at  the  close,  of  the 
usual  cavils  against  Holy  Writ  and  the  mysteries, 
showed  the  real  cause  of  his  repugnance  by  accusing 
the  new  religion  of  preaching  pardon  of  injuries  which 
was  irreconcilable  with  the  dignity  of  a  warlike  state, 
and  so  hastening  the  decline  of  Rome,  of  which  the 
calamities  produced  by  the  rule  for  a  century  of 
Christian  princes  was  sufl&cient  evidence.  A  disciple  of 
Augustine,  who  had  taken  part  in  this  discussion,  re- 
lated it  to  his  master,  and  implored  him  to  answer  it. 
He  complied,  and  without  neglecting  the  theological 
objections,  mainly  directed  his  attack  to  the  political 
questions.  Beginning  by  expressing  surprise  that  the 
mildness  of  Christianity  should  give  scandal  to  men 
accustomed  to  praise  clemency  with  the  sages  of  old,  he 
denied  that  the  faith  had  suppressed  justice  in  insisting 
upon  charity.  Christ  had  not  forbidden  war,  but  had 
only  desired  it  to  be  just  in  its  cause,  and  merciful  in 
its  process  ;  if  the  state  had  possessed  such  warriors, 
magistrates,  or  taxpayers  as  the  Church  required,. the 
Republic  would  have  been  intact.  If  the  Empire  had 
been  carried  off  by  a  wave  of  decay,  yet  St.  Augustine 


THE    FALL    OF    PAGANISM.  113 

could  point  to  a  period  long  anterior  to  the  Christian 
era,  and  show  how  in  the  time  of  Jugurtha  the  public 
morals  were  entirely  corrupted,  and  how  Rome  might 
have  been  sold  if  a  purchaser  could  have  been  found  ; 
and  then  in  horror  at  the  profligacy  which  was  sapping 
the  core  of  humanity  when  the  new  faith  appeared, 
the  Bishop  of  Hippo  exclaimed,  "  Thanks  to  the  Lord 
our  God,  who  has  sent  us  against  so  great  evils  an  un- 
exampled help,  for  whither  were  we  not  carried,  what 
souls  would  not  the  horrible  wave  of  human  perversity 
have  carried  off,  had  not  the  Cross  been  planted  above 
us,  that  we  might  seize  and  hold  fast  to  that  sacred 
wood.  For  in  that  disorder  of  manners,  detestable  as 
they  were,  that  ruin  of  the  old  discipline,  it  was  time 
that  an  authority  should  come  from  on  high  to  announce 
to  us  voluntary  poverty,  continence,  benevolence,  justice, 
and  other  strong  and  shining  virtues  ;  it  was  necessary 
not  only  that  we  might  honourably  order  this  present 
life  and  assure  a  place  in  this  earthly  city,  but  to  lead 
us  to  eternal  salvation,  to  the  all-holy  Republic,  to  that 
endless  nation  of  which  we  are  all  denizens  by  the  title 
of  faith,  hope,  and  charity.  Thus,  as  we  are  living  as 
travellers  on  earth,  we  should  learn  to  tolerate,  if  not 
strong  enough  to  correct,  those  who  wish  to  establish 
the  Republic  on  a  basis  of  unpunished  vice,  when  the 
ancient  Romans  had  founded  and  aggrandized  it  by 
their  virtues.  If  they  had  not  that  true  piety  towards 
the  True  God  which  would  have  conducted  them  to  the 
eternal  city,  they  kept  at  least  a  certain  native  righteous- 
ness which  sufl&ced  to  form  the  city  of  earth,  to  extend 
and  to  preserve  it.  God  washed  to  manifest  in  that 
glorious  and  opulent  Empire  what  civil  virtues  could 
effect,  even  when  divorced  from  true  religion,  that  with 


114  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

the  addition  of  the  latter  men  might  become  members 
of  a  better  city,  which  had  truth  for  its  sovereign, 
charity  for  its  law,  eternity  for  its  duration."* 

Noble  words,  and  yet  Augustine  did  not  aim  at 
perfection  of  eloquence,  according  to  the  standard  of 
the  rhetoricians,  but  at  convincing  Volusian,  whose 
yielding  convictions  only  waited  for  the  last  assault. 
It  was  this  hope  that  impelled  him  from  the  first  blow 
of  controversy  to  the  depths  of  the  subject,  and  brought 
forth  the  first  idea  of  his  "  City  of  God."  This  was 
in  412,  and  the  twenty-two  books  of  that  work,  com- 
menced the  following  year,  interrupted  and  continued 
by  snatches  during  fourteen  years,  were  not  concluded 
until  426.  St.  Augustine  did  but  develope  therein  the 
doctrine  of  the  above  letter,  which  he  did  not  exceed 
in  eloquence  ;  and  it  is  thus  that  immortal  books 
are  born,  not  from  the  proud  dream  of  the  lover  of 
vain-glory,  nor  from  leisure  nor  solitude,  but  of  the 
travail  of  a  soul  which  has  been  flung  into  the  strug- 
gles of  its  age,  has  sought  for  truth  and  found  inspi- 
ration. We  shall  have  occasion  soon  to  study  and 
analyze  the  "  City  of  God,"  and  note  the  commence- 
ment of  a  science  unknown  to  the  ancients — the  philo- 
sophy of  history,  but  we  may  pause  for  a  moment 
now  before  the  greatest  work  undertaken  for  the  refu- 
tation of  Paganism.  Its  plan  gave  the  author  an 
occasion  of  attacking  and  destroying  in  succession 
the  mythological  theology  of  the  poets,  the  political 
theology  of  statesmen,  the  natural  theology  of  the 
philosophers    of  old   time  ;   and  whilst   he  dissipated 

*  Volusianus  Axigustino,  inter  August,  epist.  135  ;  Marcelliiiiis, 
Augustiuo,  epist.  130  ;  August.  Volus.  epist.  137;  MarcellLao,  epist. 
138. 


THE    FALL    OF   PAGANISM.  115 

the  last  scruples  of  the  scientific,  he  left  no  pretext  for 
repugnance  on  the  part  of  men  of  letters.  That  religion 
which  they  charged  with  a  reaction  towards  ignorance 
and  barharism  gave  ample  evidence  of  rivalling  hy  its 
beauty  the  good  things  of  profane  antiquity  ;  for  what 
was  the  elegance  of  Symmachus  in  comparison  with  the 
thunders  of  the  apologists  for  Christianity  ?  * 

Yet  the  new  faith  would  not  have  changed  the  world 
had  it  appealed  only  to  men  of  learning  and  science. 
This  had  been  the  crying  fault  of  philosophy.  Plato 
had  written  on  the  door  of  his  school,  "  Let  none  but 
geometers  enter  here,"  and  Porphyry,  seven  hundred 
years  later,  confessed  that  he  knew  of  none  among  so 
many  sects  which  could  teach  a  way  of  salvation  for 
every  soul.  But  Christianity  had  found  a  universal 
path  of  safety  :  the  teaching  of  the  poor  was  its  special 
novelty,  and  ^persecutors  long  reproached  her  with  re- 
cruiting in  the  workshops  or  in  the  cottages  of  weavers 
or  of  fullers.  At  the  beginning  of  the  fifth  century,  the 
working-classes  in  the  towns,  who  occupied,  according 
to  a  poet,  the  upper  floors  of  the  houses,  were  almost 
entirely  devoted  to  the  new  religion.  But  idolatry 
was  still  mistress  of  the  rural  districts  :  votive  garlands 
still  adorned  the  sacred  trees  ;  the  traveller  came  across 
open  temples  in  which  the  sacrificial  embers  were 
burning,  or  statues  with  portable  altars  at  their  feet, 
or  encountered  some  haggard  peasant  with  a  tattered 
mantle  over  his  shoulders  and  a  sword  in  his  hands,  pro- 
fessing to  be  a  votary  of  the  gi-eat  goddess  Diana,  and 


*  St.  August,  epist.  138,  Marcellino:  "  Verum  tamen  cognosce 
quid  eos  contra  nioveat,  atque  rescribe,  ut  vel  epistolis  vel  libris, 
si  adjuverit  Deus  ad  omnia  i-espondere  curemus." — De  Civil. 
Dei,  Prefatio  ad  MarceUinum. 


116  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

to  reveal  futurity  by  her  aid.*  Yet  the  Church  believed 
that  these  rude  meu,  who  toiled  aud  suffered  and  led 
that  pastoral  life  from  which  the  Saviour  had  drawn 
His  parables,  were  not  far  from  the  kingdom  of  God,  so 
she  collected  labourers  and  shepherds  into  her  temples, 
and  did  not  disdain  arguing  before  them  as  St.  Paul 
before  the  Areopagus. 

The  homilies  of  St.  Maximus  of  Turin  form  the  chief 
example  of  this  popular  controversy.  The  inhabitants 
of  the  rugged  valleys  of  Piedmont  defended  step  by  step 
the  superstitions  of  their  forefathers,  and  the  bishop 
provoked  the  dispute  by  maldng  his  first  onslaught 
on  the  fatalism  which  attracted  the  souls  of  the  indo- 
lent, by  discharging  them  from  all  moral  responsibility. 

"  If  everything  is  fixed  by  destiny,  why,  0  pagans, 
do  you  sacrifice  to  your  idols  ?  To  what  purpose  those 
prayers,  that  incense,  those  victims,  and  those  gifts 
which  you  lavish  in  your  temples  ?  That  the  gods  may 
not  injure  us,  is  the  answer.  How  can  those  beings 
who  are  unable  to  help  themselves,  who  must  be 
guarded  by  watch-dogs  that  robbers  may  not  carry  them 

*  Porphyr.  apud  S.  Aiigiist.  De  Civit.  Dei,  1.  x.  c.  32  ;  Origen 
contra  Celsum  ;  Prudent,  conti-a  Symmachum,  1  : 

Omnis  qui  celsa  scandit  cœnacula  vulgus, 
Qiiique  terit  silicem  variis  discursibus  atram 
Et  quern  panis  alit  gradibus  dispensas  ab  altis, 
Aut  Vaticano  tumxiluni  sub  monte  û-equentat.  .  . 
Coetibus  aut  magnis  Lateranas  currit  ad  sedes. 

Sanct.  Severi.  carmen  Bucolicum: 

Signiun  quod  perbibent  esse  crucis  Dei 
Magnis  qui  colitui-  solus  in  lu'bibus. 

St.  Maxim,  de  Tiu'in,  Serm.  101.  Et  si  ad  agnim  processeris, 
cernis  aras  ligneas  et  simulacra  lapidea.  .  .  Cum  maturius  vigil- 
averis  et  videris  sancium  vino  rusticum,  scire  debes  quoniam  ut 
dicunt  aut  Dianaticus  aut  Arus-pex  est,  &c. — Idem.  Serm.  102, 
homilia  16,  tractatus  4  ;  Beugnot,  Hist,  de  la  Chute  du  Paganisme. 


THE    FALL    OF    PAGANISM.  117 

ofif,  who  cannot  protect  themselves  against  spiders,  rats, 
or  worms,  injure  you  ?  But,  they  reply,  we  adore  the 
sun,  the  stars,  and  the  elements.  They  worship  fire, 
then,  which  can  be  quenched  by  a  drop  of  water  or  fed 
by  a  stick  of  wood  ;  they  worship  the  thunder,  as  if  it 
was  not  as  obedient  to  God  as  the  rains,  the  \\dnds,  and 
the  clouds  ;  they  adore  the  starry  sphere  which  the 
Creator  has  made  with  so  marvellous  an  art  for  an 
ornament  of  beauty  to  the  world.  Lastly,  the  pagans 
reply,  the  gods  whom  we  serve  inhabit  the  heaven." 

The  preacher  followed  them  into  this  last  refuge  and 
scourged  with  his  satire  the  crimes  of  these  di^dnities 
— Saturn  devouring  his  children,  Jupiter  married  to 
his  sister,  the  adulteries  of  Mars,  then  he  continued  : — 

"  Is  it  on  account  of  her  beauty  that  you  give  Venus 
alone  among  the  goddesses  an  abode  in  a  planet  ?  What 
do  you  make  up  there  of  that  shameless  woman  among 
a  crowd  of  men  ?  What  do  you  say  of  the  host  of 
children  you  pagans  have  given  to  Jupiter?  and  if  once 
they  were  born  of  the  gods,  why  do  we  not  see  the 
same  thing  now  ?  or  is  it  that  Jupiter  has  grown  old, 
and  Juno  past  childbearing  ?  "* 

We  cannot  wonder  that  this  system  of  preaching  did 
not  shrink  from  bold  images,  familiar  expressions,  or 
from  sarcasm,  if  it  was  necessary  to  subdue  a  coarse- 
minded  audience.  Christianity  stooped  thus  to  the 
language  of  the  vulgar  to  instruct  and  reawaken 
thought  in  minds  held  incapable  of  reasoning,  to 
break  the  bonds  of  superstition,  and  release  the  souls 
of  men  from  the  terrors  which  peopled  nature  with 
malevolent  deities,  and  from  the  pleasures  by  which 

*  S.  Peter  Chiysologus,  Serm.  5,  155;  St.  Maxim,  de  Turin, 
tractatus  4  ;  cf.  St.  Cyprian,  ad  Demet.  de  Idolorum  vanitate. 


118  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTURY. 

men  repaid  themselves  for  the  horror  caused  by  their 
gods.  Whereas  eloquence  subdued  the  more  intel- 
ligent, the  grosser  minds  were  carried  away  by  example  ; 
the  waters  of  baptism  fell  upon  their  brow  to  sanctify 
its  sweats,  and  these  poor  people  returned  calmed  and 
purified  to  their  ploughs  and  their  flocks,  dreading  no 
longer  an  encounter  with  Satyrs  or  Dryads  in  the 
depth  of  the  forests.  Yet  the  earth  had  not  lost  its 
enchantment,  for  at  every  step  they  could  recognize  the 
footprint  of  the  Creator,  and  they  laboured  upon  its  soil 
as  in  the  vineyard  of  the  Heavenly  Father.  Bacchic 
orgies  no  longer  profaned  the  manners  of  which  Virgil 
had  sung  as  pure  and  peaceful  ;  Christianity  had  given 
to  the  men  of  the  fields  the  happiness  M^hich  to  the 
poet  of  the  "  Georgics  "  had  been  only  a  dream.  They 
could  realize  their  happiness  now,  and  love  the  poverty 
which  the  Gospel  had  blessed  ;  self-respect  was  present 
in  every  hovel  ;  and  as  at  length  the  Supreme  Cause  of 
all  things,  the  truth  of  which  philosophers  had  been 
ignorant,  had  been  manifested  to  the  ignorant,  they 
could  aô"ord  to  spurn  their  superstitious  fears,  inex- 
orable fate,  and  the  din  of  greedy  Acheron.* 

The  conquest  of  conscience,  commenced  by  contro- 
versy, was  consummated  by  charity.  It  was  not  a 
charity  of  that  peaceful  nature  which  knew  no  enemy, 
and  dreamed  only  of  delivering  the  captive,  building 
schools  and  hospitals,  and  covering  the  old  Roman 
world  with  its  peculiar  institutions,  as  a  wounded  body 
is  swathed  in  bandages,  but  charity,  as  it  were,  in 
arms,  attacking  Paganism  with  the  novel  weapons  of 
gentleness,  forgiveness,  and  devotion.  We  must  enter 
the  recesses  of  those  Roman  families  which  were  still 
*  Virgil,  Georoic.  lib.  ii. 


THE    FAIiL   OF   PAGANISM.  119 

divided  between  the  old  and  the  new  belief,  and  see  how 
their  Christian  members  were  skilled  in  laying  siege  to 
a  pagan  soul  with  tender  violence,  counting  no  time 
lost  if  it  was  led  at  last  to  the  altar  of  Christ.  St. 
Jerome  shows  us  this  very  spectacle  in  bringing  us  into 
the  house  of  Albinus,  who  was  a  patrician  and  pontiff 
of  the  old  religion.  His  daughter,  Laeta,  was  a  Chris- 
tian, and  had  borne  to  a  Christian  husband  the  young 
Paula,  whose  education  occupied  Jerome  in  his  desert 
retreat.  The  latter  wrote  to  Laeta,  "  Who  would  have 
believed  that  the  grand-daughter  of  the  pontiff  Albinus 
would,  from  a  vow  made  at  a  martyr's  tomb,  have 
brought  her  grandfather  to  listen  smilingly  as  she  stam- 
mered a  hymn  to  Christ,  and  that  the  old  man  should 
one  day  cherish  on  his  knees  a  virgin  of  the  Lord  ?  " 
Then  he  added,  in  touching  consolation  to  Laeta  : — 

"  A  holy  and  faithful  house  sanctifies  the  one  infidel 
who  remains  firm  in  his  principles.  The  man  who  is 
surrounded  by  a  troop  of  Christian  children  and  gi-and- 
children,  must  be  already  a  candidate  for  the  faith. 
Laeta,  my  most  holy  sister  in  Jesus  Christ,  let  me  say 
this,  that  you  may  not  despair  of  your  father's  salva- 
tion." 

He  ended  by  adding  advice  to  encouragement,  and 
entered  into  and  directed  the  last  attack  of  the  domestic 
plot,  to  which  the  old  man's  obstinacy  was  destined  to 
yield. 

"  Let  your  little  child,  whenever  she  sees  her  grand- 
father, throw  herself  on  his  breast,  hang  on  his  neck, 
and  sing  him  the  Alleluia  in  spite  of  himself."* 

*  St.  Jerome,  epist.  107,  ad  Laetam.  "  Qiiis  hoc  crederit  ut 
Albini  pontificis  neptis  de  repromissione  martyris  nasceritur? 
Cum  a^iim  ^•iderit,  in  pectus  ejus  transiliat,  collo  dependeat 
nolenti  alleluia  decantet." 


120  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

To  such  pious  manœuvres,  repeated  doubtless  in 
every  patrician  house,  that  proud  and  opiniated  spirit 
of  the  old  Romans,  which  had  formed  the  last  rampart 
of  Paganism,  surely  though  slowly  succumbed. 

But  kindness  and  consideration  were  naturally  easy 
when  the  conversion  of  a  parent  was  the  aim,  and  a 
greater  merit  lay  in  preaching  truth  to  enemies  and 
conquering  fanatical  crowds  by  generosity.  When  St. 
Augustine  took  possession  of  his  see  at  Hippo,  the 
imperial  laws  put  sword  and  fire  at  his  disposal  against 
the  pagans,  but  he  at  once  forbade  violence,  and  was 
even  unwilling  that  they  should  be  forced  to  break  the 
idols  raised  upon  their  lands. 

"  Let  us  begin  rather,"  he  said,  "  by  destroying  the 
false  gods  in  their  hearts."  Once  the  Christians  of  the 
little  town  of  Suffecta,  forgetful  of  his  instructions, 
destroyed  a  statue  of  Hercules.  The  pagan  populace,  in 
a  fury,  took  uj)  arms,  and  rushing  upon  the  faithful, 
killed  sixty  of  them.  St.  Augustine  might  have 
obtained  the  execution  of  the  homicides,  not  only  by 
setting  the  edicts  of  Theodosius  in  motion,  but  under 
the  whole  system  of  Roman  law  against  murder  and 
violence  in  arms  ;  but  he  wrote  to  the  pagans  of 
Sufiecta,  reproaching  them,  indeed,  with  the  shedding 
of  innocent  blood,  and  threatening  them  with  the 
Divine  justice,  liut  refrained  from  summoning  them 
before  the  tribunals  of  earth. 

"  If  you  say  that  the  Hercules  was  your  property,  be 
at  peace,  we  will  restore  it  ;  stone  is  not  wanting  to  us  ; 
we  have  metal,  many  kinds  of  marble,  and  workmen 
in  abundance.  Not  a  moment  shall  be  lost  in  carving 
out  your  god,  in  moulding  and  gilding  it.  We  will  also 
be  very  careful  to  paint  him  red,  that  he  may  be  able 


THE    FALL    OF   PAGANISM.  121 

to  hear  your  prayers  ;  but  if  we  give  you  back  your 
Hercules,  restore  to  us  the  number  of  souls  of  which 
you  have  robbed  us."* 

Language  so  full  of  sense,  so  hardy,  and  yet  so 
tender,  was  calculated  to  touch  men's  hearts;  for 
human  nature  loves  that  which  excels  it,  and  the 
doctrine  of  pardon  towards  enemies  ended  in  gaining 
the  world  which  it  had  at  first  astonished. 

As  the  imperial  edicts  had  no  power  to  demolish  the 
idols,  still  less  could  they  close  the  arenas.  Constan- 
tino, by  a  constitution  of  a.d.  325,  promulgated  in  the 
first  fervour  of  his  conversion,  had,  indeed,  forbidden 
those  games  of  bloodshed  ;  but  the  passions  of  the 
populace,  stronger  than  law,  had  not  only  protected 
their  pleasures,  but  insisted  on  making  the  princes 
accomplices  in  them,  so  that  the  victories  of  Theodosius 
still  provided  gladiators  for  the  amphitheatres  of  Rome. 
Vainly  did  the  eloquence  of  the  Fathers  ring  against 
these  bloody  amusements  ;  vainly  did  the  poet  Pru- 
dentius,  in  pathetic  verse,  press  Honorius  to  command 
that  death  should  cease  to  be  a  sport,  and  murder  a 
public  pleasure.  But  charity  accomplished  what  no 
earthly  power  had  dared  commence.  An  Eastern  monk, 
named  Telemachus,  one  of  those  useless  men,  those 
enemies  to  society,  as  they  were  called,  took  up  his 
staff  one  day  and  journeyed  to  Rome,  to  put  down  the 
gladiatorial  combats.  On  the  1st  of  January  of  the 
year  a.d.  404,  the  Roman  people,  piled  tier  upon  tier 
on  the  benches  of  the  Coliseum,  were  celebrating  the 
sixth  consulate  of  Honorius.  The  arena  had  already 
been   reddened   with   the    blood    of    several   pairs    of 

*  St.  August  Serm.  Gl,  epist.  50,  Senioribus  Colouias  Suflfectanae. 
VOL.  I.  6 


122  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

gladiators,  when  suddenly,  in  the  thick  of  an  assault 
of  arms  which  held  every  eye  fixed,  and  kept  every 
mind  in  breathless  suspense,  a  monk  appeared,  rushed 
forward  with  outstretched  arms,  and  forced  the  swords 
asunder.  At  the  sight,  the  astonished  audience  rose 
as  one  man,  roaring  in  question  as  to  what  madman  it 
could  be  who  dared  to  interrupt  the  most  sacred  plea- 
sures of  the  sovereign  people.  Then  curses,  threats, 
and  finally  stones,  rained  from  every  circle.  Telemachus 
fell  dead,  and  the  combatants  he  had  striven  to  part 
finished  their  bout.*  This  blood  was  needed  to  seal 
the  abolition  of  the  games  of  blood,  for  the  martyrdom 
of  the  monk  forced  the  irresolution  of  Honorius,  and  an 
edict  of  the  same  year,  which  seems  to  have  extorted 
obedience,  suppressed  the  gladiatorial  shows,  and  with 
them  idolatry  lost  its  chief  support.  The  Coliseum 
remains  to  this  day,  and  the  mighty  breach  in  its  side 
symbolizes  the  assault  of  Christianity  upon  Koman 
society,  which  it  entered  only  by  dismantling  it. 
To-day  we  must  bless  the  ruin  which  it  made,  as  on 
entering  the  old  amphitheatre  we  discern  therein  only 
the  signs  of  peace,  plants  growing,  birds  building  their 
nests,  children  playing  innocently  at  the  foot  of  the 
wooden  cross  which  rises  in  the  midst  as  the  avenger 
of  humanity  which  was  outraged,  the  redemptress  of 
humanity  which  fell. 

We  may  marvel  that,  before  so  much  love  and  so 
much  light,  the  world  did  not  yield  at  once,  to  the  entire 
discomfiture  of  Paganism.    But  one  portion  of  the  latter 


*  Lex  Unica,  Cod.  De  Gladiatoribus  ;  Symmaclnis,  lib.  x. 
epist.  68  ;  Prudent,  contra  Sym.  ii.,  on  the  Martyrdom  of  St. 
Telemachus  ;  Theodoret,  Sed.  Hist.  v.  26  ;  Martyrologium  Ro- 
manum  ad  diem  1  Jan. 


THE    FALL    OF    PAGANISM.  123 

survived  in  spite  of  Christianity,  and  as  if  to  keep  it 
strung  to  an  eternal  resistance,  while  another  remained 
in  the  very  bosom  of  the  Church  which  showed  her 
wisdom  in  respecting  the  legitimate  wants  of  man  and 
the  innocent  pleasures  of  the  nations.  For  Paganism 
has  two  constituent  parts,  the  one  being  an  absolutely 
false  religious  idea,  the  other  the  true  idea  of  the 
necessary  relation  of  man  with  the  invisible  world, 
and  the  consequent  methods  of  fixing  that  relation 
under  sensible  forms  in  temples,  festivals,  and  symbols. 
Religious  thought  cannot  be  confined  to  the  solitary 
domain  of  contemplation,  but  proceeds  thence  to  grasp 
space  by  the  temples  which  it  causes  to  be  reared,  time 
by  the  days  which  it  keeps  holy,  and  nature  in  her 
entirety,  by  selecting  as  emblems  such  things  as  fire, 
perfume,  and  flowers,  her  brightest  and  purest  products. 
These  truths  ought  not  to  perish,  and  the  policy  of 
the  Church  had  to  solve  the  difficulty  of  crushing 
idolatry  without  stifling  beauty  of  worshij?.  The  zeal 
of  the  Fathers  was  displayed  on  every  page  of  their 
writings,  and  they  have  been  charged  with  pushing  it 
to  the  point  of  Vandalism  in  demanding  the  destruction 
of  the  temples.  But  St.  Augustine  took  a  most  effec- 
tual step  towards  obviating  that  passion  for  iconoclasm 
which  seizes  whole  nations  at  some  moment  of  intense 
public  emotion,  and  forbade  Christians  to  turn  articles 
which  had  been  devoted  to  the  service  of  the  false 
deities  to  their  personal  use.  He  desired  that  the 
stone,  wood,  and  precious  metals  should  be  purified  in 
the  service  of  the  state,  or  in  honour  of  the  true  God, 
and  his  maxims  saved  many  a  building  in  Italy,  Sicily, 
and  Gaul  which  remains  to  us  instinct  with  the  genius 
of  antiquity.      The  Pantheon  of  Agrippa  became  the 


124  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Basilica  of  All  the  Martyrs,  and  in  Eome  alone  eight 
pagan  sanctuaries  stand  in  our  day  under  the  invocation 
of  a  saint  as  protector  of  their  ancient  walls.  The 
Temple  of  Mars  at  Florence,  and  that  of  Hercules 
at  Milan,  were  converted  into  Baptisteries.  Sicily 
defended  for  long  her  ancient  altars  ;  but  when  the 
Council  of  Ephesus  had  given  to  the  veneration  of  the 
Mother  of  God  a  new  and  brilliant  lustre,  the  Sicilians 
surrendered,  and  the  soft  touch  of  the  Virgin  opened 
more  temples  than  the  iron  hand  of  the  Caesars.  The 
Mausoleum  of  the  tyrant  Phalaris  was  made  sacred  to 
our  Lady  of  Mercy,  and  the  temple  of  Venus,  on  Mount 
Eryx,  formerly  served  by  a  college  of  harlots,  became 
the  Church  of  St.  Mary  of  the  Snows.* 

And  if  the  people  hankered  after  those  lofty  porticoes 
beneath  which  their  fathers  had  prayed,  still  more 
difficult  was  it  to  rob  them  of  those  festivals  which  had 
lightened  the  severity  of  their  labour,  and  broken  in 
upon  the  monotony  of  their  life.  So  Christianity 
hallowed  in  place  of  suppressing  them,  and  from  the 
end  of  the  fourth  century  solemnities  in  honour  of  the 
martyrs  took  the  place  of  those  of  the  false  gods.  The 
bishops  encouraged  an  admixture  of  sober  joy  with  the 
gravity  of  these  pilgrimages,  permitted  fraternal  love- 
feasts  on  their  celebration,  and  transported  thus  into 
the  Church  the  fairs  which  had  tempted  the  multitude 
to  the  worship  of  Bacchus  and  Jupiter.  Yet  the  per- 
severance of  the  clergy  failed  to  displace  the  days  which 
custom  had  consecrated,  and  the  cycle  of  the  Christian 

*  St.  Augustine,  epist.  47,  PublicolfB  ;  Marangoiii  delle  cose 
gentilesclie  e  profane  trasportate  ad  use  et  ornamento  delle 
cliiese,  pp.  25U,  257,  282  ;  Beugnot,  De  la  Chute  du  Paganisme  en 
Occident. 


THE    FALL    OF   PAGANISM.  125 

year  was  forced  to  conform  in  many  particulars  to  the 
l^agan  calendar.  Thus,  according  to  the  authority  of 
Bede,  the  procession  of  Candlemas  consigned  the 
Lupercalia  to  obli\T[on,  and  the  Ambaryalia  only 
yielded  to  the  rustic  pomps  of  the  Eogations.  As 
the  peasants  of  Enna,  in  Sicily,  could  not  detach 
themselves  from  the  joyful  festivals  they  always  held 
after  harvest  in  honour  of  Ceres,  the  Feast  of  the 
Visitation  was  retarded  on  their  account,  and  they 
offered  on  the  altar  of  Christ  the  ripe  wheat-ears  with 
which  they  had  garlanded  their  idols.* 

In  fact,  if  Christianity  prohibited  the  adoration  of 
Nature,  she  never  cursed  or  condemned  that  which  con- 
stituted the  visible  beauty  of  the  universe.  It  beheld, 
not  only  in  the  heathen  religion,  but  in  the  public  ritual, 
a  symbolism  which  employed  creatures  as  the  signs  of 
a  sacred  language  between  God  and  man.  The  seven- 
branched  candlestick  had  lighted  the  tabernacle  of 
Moses,  the  gums  of  Arabia  had  burnt  on  the  altar, 
and  year  by  year  the  Hebrew  people  had  gathered  palm- 
branches  and  foliage  for  the  Feast  of  Tabernacles. 
The  rites  which  were  so  common  to  every  worship 
were  to  pass  into  the  new  religion.  The  poet  Pruden- 
tius  was  already  inviting  Christian  virgins  to  the  tomb 
of  St.  Eulalia,  and  bidding  them  bring  baskets  of 
flowers  in  honour  of  the  youthful  martp'  ;  and  at  the 
same  period  was  the  custom  introduced  of  burning 
tapers  before  the  places  where  the  saints  reposed.  The 
priest  Vigilantius  cavilled  at  this  practice,  and  taxed  it 

*  Tlieodoret,  cited  by  Bar.  nius,  ad.  ann.  44,  87  ;  St.  August, 
epist.  29  ;  St.  Gregory  Nyssan.in  Vita  St.  Gregorii  Thaumatm-gi. 
The  Councils  instantly  reproved  the  disorders  wliich  crept  into 
these  new  festivals.  Concilium  Carthagin.  iii.  canon  30  ;  Tolet, 
III.  cap.  xxiii  ;  Mai-angoni,  p.  282. 


126  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

mth  idolatry  ;  but  St.  Jerome  replied,  and  bis  clever 
genius  embraced  at  once  the  wbole  scope  of  tbe  question. 

"  You  call  tliese  Christians  idolaters.  I  deny  it  not, 
for  all  who  believe  on  Christ  have  come  from  idolatry  ; 
but  because  we  rendered  this  worship  once  to  idols, 
must  it  be  forbidden  now  to  offer  it  to  the  true  God  ? 
All  the  churches  of  the  East  burn  candles  at  the  mo- 
ment of  the  reading  of  the  Gospel,  not  truly  to  dissi- 
pate the  darkness,  for  at  that  hour  the  sun  is  shining 
with  all  its  brightness,  but  as  a  sign  of  joy,  in  memory 
of  those  lamps  which  the  wise  virgins  kept  burning  in 
honour  of  the  Eternal  Light,  of  which  it  is  written, 
'  Thy  word,  0  Lord,  shall  be  a  lamp  unto  my  feet,  and 
a  light  unto  my  paths.'  "* 

St,  Jerome  summed  up  on  this  point  the  whole  policy 
of  the  Church,  whereby  she  achieved  the  conversion  of 
the  Roman  world,  as  well  as  the  civilization  of  the  bar- 
barians. Two  centuries  later,  when  the  Anglo-Saxons 
poured  in  crowds  to  baptism,  and  demanded  permission 
to  burn  their  idols.  Pope  Gregory  the  Great  moderated 
this  zeal,  and  wrote  to  his  missioners,  directing  them 
to  destroy  the  images  but  to  preserve  the  temples,  and 
consecrate  them,  that  the  people,  having  acknowledged 
the  true  God,  might  the  more  readily  come  to  worship 
Him  in  places  to  which  they  had  become  accustomed. 
He  also  advised  them  to  replace  the  old  pagan  orgies 
by  orderly  banquets,  in  the  hope  that  if  they  allowed 
the  people  some  sensible  gratifications,  they  might  rise 
more  easily  to  spiritual  consolations.!  The  enemies  of 
the  Roman  Church  have   triumphed  over  these  pass- 

*  Marangoni.    p.    378  ;    Prudentius,   Peri-Steplianon   Hymn. 
Sanctïe  Eulaliœ;  St.  Jerome  contra  Vigilantium. 
j-  St.  Greg  lib.  xi.  epist.  76. 


THE   FALL    OF    PAGANISM.  127 

ages,  in  which  they  have  only  seen  the  abomination 
brought  into  the  sacred  place  ;  but  we  must  rather  ad- 
mire the  utterances  of  a  religion  which  has  penetrated 
into  the  depths  of  humanity,  and  knowing  what  con- 
flicts with  passion  she  must  of  necessity  demand  from 
it,  shrinks  from  imposing  needless  burdens.  This 
course  has  shown  that  true  knowledge  and  love  of  human 
nature  whereby  alone  it  can  be  won. 

But  there  was  that  other  principle  in  Paganism  with 
which  the  Church  could  not  treat,  which  she  had 
to  attack  without  respite,  and  which  on  its  own  side 
offered  a  resistance  as  imperishable  as  the  passions  in 
which  it  was  rooted.  At  first,  the  old  religion  had 
hoped  to  preserve  itself  intact,  and  spring  over  the 
period  of  the  invasions  like  ^neas  traversing  burning 
Troy  with  the  gods  he  had  saved.  Pagans  counted 
with  joy  a  multitude  of  sympathizers  amongst  those 
Goths,  Franks,  and  Lombards  who  had  covered  the 
face  of  the  Western  Emj)ire.  Roman  polytheism, 
faithful  to  its  maxims,  held  out  the  hand  to  the  poly- 
theism of  the  barbarians,  and  as  the  Jupiter  of  the 
Capitol  had  admitted  the  strange  divinities  of  Asia  to 
share  his  throne,  he  could  hardly  reject  Woden  and 
Thor,  who  were  compared  to  Mercury  and  Vulcan. 
They  were,  it  was  said,  the  same  heavenly  powers 
honoured  under  different  names,  and  the  twin  cults 
were  bound  to  sustain  one  another  against  the  jealous 
God  of  the  Christians.  Thus  the  wave  of  invasion  seemed 
to  leave  a  sediment  which  revived  the  genius  of 
Paganism,  and  in  the  midst  of  the  sixth  century,  when 
Rome  had  passed  fifty  years  under  Gothic  domination, 
the  idolatrous  party  boldly  attempted  to  reopen  the 
Temple  of  Janus  and  restore  the  Palladium.    So,  at  the 


128  CIVILIZATION   IN  FIFTH   CENTURY. 

opening  of  the  seventh  century,  St.  Gregory  the  Great 
awakened  the  solicitude  of  the  Bishops  of  Terracina, 
Corsica,  and  Sardinia  towards  the  pagans  in  their 
respective  dioceses.  Ahout  the  same  time,  the  efforts 
of  St.  Romanus  and  St.  Eloi  barely  achieved  the  con- 
version of  Neustria,  and  in  the  next  century  Austrasia 
was  so  much  troubled  by  the  corruption  of  the  clergy 
and  the  violence  of  the  nobles,  that  multitudes  aban- 
doned the  Gospel  and  restored  their  idols.  In  truth, 
the  two  systems  of  Paganism  were  mingled,  and  the 
struggle  sustained  by  the  Church  for  three  centuries 
against  the  deities  of  Eome  was  but  an  apprenticeship 
to  the  longer  conflict  she  was  destined  to  wage  against 
the  idols  of  the  Germans.  In  that  case,  also,  she  con- 
quered by  a  charity  whose  only  term  was  martyrdom,  and 
by  a  controversial  method  which  carried  its  considera- 
tion for  rude  minds  to  the  last  degree.  The  Church 
treated  these  barbarians  with  the  same  respect  as  the 
people  of  Italy  or  of  Greece,  and  the  entire  polemical 
system  of  the  old  apologists  reappeared  in  the  homilies 
of  the  missioners  who  evangelized  Frisia  and  Thuringia. 
The  Bishop  Daniel,  in  expounding  the  proper  method 
of  discussion  with  the  pagans  of  the  North,  renewed 
the  arguments  of  St.  Maximus  of  Turin.  "  You  must 
ask  them,"  he  said,  "  if  their  gods  breed  still,  and  if 
not,  why  they  had  ceased  to  do  so."  * 

But  Charlemagne  was  now  about  to  appear,  to 
assure  to  Christianity  dominion,  but  not  repose.  Van- 
quished Paganism  was  transformed,  and  instead  of  a 


*  Gibbon,  Decline  and  Fall,  chap.  28  ;  Beugnot,  Hist,  de  la 
Chute  du  Paganisme  ;  Procopius,  de  BeUo  Gothico  ;  St.  Gre- 
gory, Ej)ist.  As  to  conversion  of  the  Germans,  compare  the 
atitiior's  work,  "  Civilization  Chrétienne  chez  les  Francs." 


THE    FALL   OF   PAGANISM.  129 

worship  became  a  superstition.  Yet,  under  the  new 
form,  it  retained  its  essential  faculty  of  leading  men 
astray  through  their  fears  and  their  lusts.  The  con- 
verted races  agreed  to  hold  that  their  former  gods  were 
so  many  daemons,  but  upon  the  condition  of  reverencing 
and  invoking  them,  and  attaching  an  occult  virtue  to 
their  images.  Thus  the  Florentines  had  dedicated  the 
Temple  of  Mars  to  St.  John  ;  but  a  certain  awe  still 
attached  to  the  image  of  the  fallen  god.  In  the  year 
1215,  a  murder  committed  upon  the  spot  brought  the 
Guelphs  and  Ghibellines  to  blows,  upon  which  Villani,* 
an  able  historian,  but  one  apt  to  be  carried  away  by  the 
opinions  prevalent  in  his  time,  concluded  "that  the 
enemy  of  the  human  race  had  retained  a  certain 
power  in  his  ancient  idol,  since  at  its  feet  the  crime 
had  been  committed  which  had  brought  upon  Florence 
so  many  evils."  These  malevolent  phantoms  were 
but  slowly  dissipated,  for  imaginations  could  not  shake 
themselves  free  of  a  spell  which  had  bound  them  for  so 
many  ages.  The  ancient  gods  still  kept  their  place  in 
imprecations  and  oaths,  and  to  this  day  the  Italians 
swear  by  Bacchus.  Pagan  associations  were  as  firmly 
and  still  more  dangerously  perpetuated  in  the  sensual 
festivals,  with  their  orgies  and  obscene  songs,  which  the 
canons  of  the  councils  held  in  Italy,  France,  and  Spain 
did  not  cease  to  condemn.  The  pilgrims  from  the 
North  were  astonished,  on  visiting  Rome,  at  seeing  the 
calends  of  January  celebrated  by  bands  of  musicians 
and  dancers,  who  paraded  the  town  with  sacrilegious 
songs  and  exclamations  which  savoured  of  idolatry. 
When  the  ItaHan  cities  were  hastening,  in  their  newly 
acquired  liberty,  to  form  themselves  in  the  image  of 

*  Villani,  Cronaca,  lib.  i.  42,  60  ;  ibid.  lib.  v.  38. 

6t 


130  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Rome,  they  established  consuls  and  wished  for  public 
games.  Horse  and  foot  races  were  celebrated,  and  the 
lustful  memories  of  old  time  came  to  mingle  with  these 
recreations,  and  races  of  courtesans  were  given  in 
imitation  of  the  festivals  of  Flora.  If  the  Italy  of  the 
Middle  Age  did  not  actually  revive  the  gladiatorial 
conflicts,  she  did  not  renounce  bloody  spectacles.  At 
Ravenna,  at  Orvieto,  and  at  Sienna,  custom  had  fixed 
certain  days  upon  which  two  bands  of  their  citizens  took 
up  arms  and  slaughtered  each  other  for  the  amusement 
of  the  mob.  Petrarch,  in  1346,  grew  indignant  at 
beholding  a  renewal  at  Naples  of  the  butcheries  of  the 
Coliseum.  He  relates  how,  one  day,  he  was  drawn  by 
some  friends  to  a  spot  not  far  from  the  city,  where  he 
found  the  court,  the  nobility,  and  the  multitude  ranged 
in  circles  assisting  at  the  warlike  sports.  Noble  youths 
were  being  slaughtered  there  under  the  eyes  of  their 
fathers,  their  glory  consisting  in  the  coolness  with 
which  they  received  the  death-blow  ;  and  one  of  them 
rolled  in  a  pool  of  blood  at  the  very  feet  of  the  poet. 
Petrarch,  horror-stricken,  struck  spurs  into  his  horse 
and  fled,  vowing  to  quit  before  three  days  were  past  a 
land  which  was  stained  with  Christian  blood.* 

If  pagan  instincts  thus  lurked  in  the  bosom  of 
Catholic  society,  we  may  expect  to  see  them  burst  forth 
as  soon  as  Paganism  reappeared  openly  in  the  heresy 
of  the  Albigenses.  From  Bulgaria  to  Catalonia,  from 
the  mouths  of  the  Rhine  to  the  pharos  of  Messina, 
millions  of  men  arose,  fought,  and  died  for  a  doctrine, 
the  essence  of  which  lay  in  replacing  the  austerity  of 

*  Muratori,  Dissert.  29  de  Spectaculis  et  Ludis  Publicis  Medii 
^vi,  pp.  8;52,  h;?;3,  852  ;  Pctrarcli,  Familiarium,  lib.  v.  epist.  8 
(pointed  out  to  the  author  by  M.  Eugène  Rendu). 


THE    FALL   OF    PAGANISM.  131 

Catholic  dogma  by  a  new  mythology,  in  recognizing 
two  eternal  princijjles  of  Good  and  Evil,  and  dethroning 
the  sole  God  of  the  Christians.*  This  popular  hea- 
thenism surprises  us  in  an  epoch  wherein  the  Church 
seemed  absolute  over  the  conscience  ;  but,  more  strange 
still,  it  possessed  a  learned  element,  as  if  the  human 
reason,  once  set  free  by  the  new  faith,  had  fallen  back 
into  its  old  slavery,  whilst  in  every  age  men  of  learning, 
ingenuity,  and  perseverance  conspired  to  renew  the 
traditions  of  the  school  of  Alexandria,  and  restore  error 
by  philosophy  and  the  occult  sciences. 

Up  to  the  seventh  century  we  can  trace  the  pagan 
doctrines  in  the  Gallo-Roman  schools,  which  even 
contained  men  who  were  professedly  heathen  ;  and  the 
writers  of  that  epoch  were  still  combating  the  false 
learning  of  those  who  boasted  of  extending  the  dis- 
coveries of  .their  predecessors,  but  were  in  reality 
attached  to  their  errors.  But  these  dying  sparks  were 
to  be  extinguished  in  the  obscurity  of  the  barbarous 
era.  It  was  in  the  midst  of  the  Carlovingian  Revival 
that  a  theologian  of  depth,  who  had  studied  in  the 
monastic  schools  of  Ireland,  John  Scotus  Erigena, 
began  to  profess,  with  force  and  brilliancy  of  exposition, 
a  philosophy  which  was  thoroughly  imbued  with  the 
Alexandrian  opinions.  He  tempered  its  excesses,  in- 
deed, by  contradictions  which  saved  his  own  ortho- 
doxy, but  failed  to  satisfy  the  logic  of  his  disciples — a 
logic  which  three  hundred  years  later  impelled  Amaury 
de  Bene  and  David  de  Dinand  to  teach  publicly  the 
pantheistic  tenets  of  the  unity  of  substance,  the  identity 

*  Sclimidt,  Hist,  et  Doctrine  de  la  Secte  des  Cathares  ou 
Albigeois. 


132  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTURY. 

of  spirit  and  matter,  and  of  God  and  nature.*  The 
Church  perceived  the  greatness  of  the  danger,  and  the 
new  sect  succumbed  to  the  condemnations  of  her 
doctors  and  her  councils  ;  but  these  pantheistic  prin- 
ciples, yet  alive,  lay  hidden  amongst  the  disciples  of 
Averrhoes,  to  appear  again  with  a  more  menacing 
attitude  in  the  persons  of  Giordano  Bruno  and  of 
Spinoza. 

And  whereas  a  false  system  of  metaphysics  was 
enticing  many  minds  back  to  pagan  antiquity,  a 
greater  number  still  were  being  drawn  thither  through 
those  occult  sciences  which  formed  the  living  sore  of 
the  Middle  Age.  Christianity  has  been  charged  with 
breeding,  in  her  favouring  obscurity,  astrology  and 
magic,  as  well  as  the  sanguinary  legislation  by  which 
their  excesses  were  repressed  ;  but  it  is  forgotten  that 
the  classic  ages  of  the  hidden  sciences  were  the  most 
brilliant  periods  of  Paganism,  that  they  flourished  at 
Rome  under  Augustus,  were  elaborated  at  Alexandria, 
and  could  claim  Jamblichus,  Julian,  and  Maximus  of 
Ephesus,  the  most  illustrious  of  the  Neoplatonists, 
amongst  their  neophytes.  It  was  in  vain  that  Origen, 
who  had  detected  the  secrets  of  the  adepts,  unveiled  a 
portion  of  their  artifices,  by  what  illusions  they  caused 
the  thunders  to  mutter,  daemons  to  appear,  death's- 
heads  to  speak  ;  for  the  vulgar  believed  in  the  mysteries 
which  afforded  the  charm  of  fear.  But  the  Csesars 
were  troubled  by  that  divining  art  which  boasted  of 
having  announced  their  advent,  but  also  foretold  their 

*  St.  Ouen,  Prefatio  ad  vitam  Sancti  Eligii  ;  Prologus  ad  vitam 
Sancti  Maximum  Miliaccnsis  apud  Mabillon  ;  Acta  S.  O.  S.  B. 
i.  5S1  ;  Jolm  Scotus  de  Divisione  Naturœ  ;  Amaury  de  Bene 
and  David  de  Dinand  ;  Martin  Polon.  Clironic.  lib.  iv.;  St.  Thomas, 
in  Secund.  Sentent,  dis.  xvii.  quasst. 


THE    FALL   OF   PAGANISM.  133 

fall,  and  we  find  the  astrologers  suffering  banishment 
as  mathematicians  under  Tiberius,  persecuted  for  three 
centuries,  and  finally  proscribed  by  constitutions  of 
Diocletian  and  of  Maximian.*  It  was  the  legislation  of 
the  pagan  emperors,  carried  on  by  Valentinian  and 
Valons,  and  received  into  the  codes  of  Athalaric,  of 
Liutprand,  and  of  Charlemagne,  which  founded  the 
penal  laws  against  sorcery  which  prevailed  in  the 
Middle  Age  ;  and  thus  did  the  torch  of  the  ancient 
wisdom  kindle  the  piles  with  which  the  Church  has 
been  reproached. 

But  penal  fires  could  effect  nothing  against  the  fas- 
cinations of  the  forbidden  fruit.  In  the  thirteenth 
century,  an  age  when  Christian  civilization  was  in  its 
bloom,  the  doctrines  reappeared  which  tended  to  deify 
the  stars,  by  submitting  human  wills  to  their  influence. 
Astrology  had  made  its  peace  with  the  law,  and  placed 
itself  beside  the  thrones  of  princes,  or  even  in  the 
chairs  of  the  universities  ;  armies  refused  to  march 
unless  preceded  by  observers  who  would  mark  the 
height  of  the  stars,  and  rule  the  conjunction  under 
which  camps  should  be  traced  or  battle  given.  The 
Emperor  Frederick  the  Second  was  surrounded  by 
astrologers,  and  the  republics  of  Italy  had  theirs  as 
well,  so  that  the  rival  factions  disputed  for  heaven  in 
addition  to  earth. f  On  the  other  hand,  there  was  a 
renewal  of  the  radical  vice  of  Paganism,  of  the  despair- 
ing struggle  between  man  and  nature,  the  attempt  to 

*  Origen,  JPhilosophxxmena,  editit  Millier,  lib.  iv.  62,  03.  71, 
75  ;  Suetonius  in  Tiberio.  Cod.  Justin,  ix.  18,  de  Maleficis  et 
Mathematicis,  ibid.  yi.  4,  5,  9. 

+  Ijibri  Histoire  des  Sciences  Mathématiques  en  Italie,  ri.  52  ; 
Mirratori,  Scriptores  Rerum  Italicarum,  viii.  228,  xiv.  930-1  ; 
Villani,  Cronaca,  vi.  83. 


134  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

conquer  the  latter,  not  by  science  or  by  art,  but  by 
superstitious  operations  and  formulas  ;  the  adepts  in 
magic  renewed  the  idolatrous  observances,  not  only  in 
the  secrecy  of  their  laboratories,  but  in  the  numerous 
writings  to  which  fear  and  curiosity  afforded  a  circula- 
tion, in  the  shade  of  school  or  of  cloister.  Albert  the 
Great  recognized  their  influence,  and  in  his  summary 
of  the  processes  by  which  those  erring  spirits  boasted 
of  predicting  and  governing  the  future,  we  may  wonder 
at  superstitions  which  the  ancients  themselves  decried 
and  repudiated;  for  instance,  "Those  abominable 
images  which  they  call  Babylonian,  which  appertain  to 
the  worship  of  Venus,  and  the  figures  of  Belenus  and 
of  Hercules,  whom  they  exorcise  by  the  names  of  the 
fifty-four  daemons  attached  to  the  service  of  the  Moon  : 
upon  them  they  inscribe  seven  names  in  direct  order 
to  obtain  a  happy  issue,  and  seven  inversely  to  avert 
an  unlucky  event.  In  the  first  case,  they  incense  them 
with  aloes  and  balm  ;  in  the  second,  with  resin  and 
sandal- wood.* 

So  much  could  error  effect  in  the  time  of  St.  Louis 
and  St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  though  theologians  exliausted 
their  arguments  against  thé  magicians  and  astrologers, 
and  Dante  fixed  them  in  the  lowest  circle  of  his  Hell. 
The  occult  sciences  threw  their  spell  over  mankind, 
until  they  faded  before  the  broad  light  of  the  sixteenth 
century.  Yet  Paganism  did  not  expire  with  them,  but 
continued  to  seethe  like  the  lava  of  a  volcano,  terrifying 
the  Christian  world  by  chronic  eruptions.  No,  Pagan- 
ism could  not  be  extinct  in  the  hearts  of  men  as  long 
as  a  terror  of  God  and  the  voluptuous  influences  of 
nature  reigned  therein  together,  nor  could  it  be  stifled 
*  Albortus  Magnus,  Oper.  lib.  v.  Speculum  Astronom 


THE    FALL    OF    PAGANISM.  135 

in  the  schools  as  long  as  Pantheism  held  its  own,  and 
new  sects  rose  to  announce  the  apotheosis  of  humanity 
and  the  rehabilitation  of  the  flesh.  And  the  old  error 
still  ruled  in  Asia,  in  Africa,  and  in  half  of  the  islands 
of  ocean,  maintaining  itself  by  threats  and  in  arms, 
and  now  making  martyrs  at  Tonquin  and  in  China, 
as  of  old  in  Rome  and  Nicomedia  :  it  still  contends 
with  the  Church  for  six  hundred  millions  of  immortal 
souls. 

A  celebrated  man,  the  object  of  our  just  regrets,  but 
often  liable  to  erroneous  conclusions,  has  wi-itten,  "  How 
dogmas  end."  But  the  study  we  have  made  may  teach 
us  that  dogmas  do  not  end.  Humanity  has  only  recog- 
nized two  of  them,  though  under  diverse  forms — that 
of  the  true  God  and  that  of  the  false  deities.  The  latter 
was  the  masters  of  pagan  hearts  and  the  old  society,  the 
idea  of  the  former  went  forth  from  among  the  Judsean 
hills  to  enlighten  Europe  first,  and  thence,  little  by 
Httle,  the  remainder  of  the  world.  The  struggle 
between  these  two  dogmas  is  the  key  of  history,  and 
affords  to  it  all  its  grandeur  and  its  interest  ;  for  what 
can  be  a  prouder  position  or  a  more  touching  issue  for 
the  human  race  than  to  stand  as  prize  in  the  combat 
between  Error  and  Truth  ? 


136  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 


CHAPTER  V. 


ROMAN   LAW. 


We  have  seen  what  roots  the  old  religion  of  Rome  had 
struck  out,  how  their  dislodgment  was  the  work  of 
centuries,  and  how  the  highest  degree  of  wisdom,  of 
courage,  and  of  tact  was  necessary  to  stifle  error  with- 
out doing  violence  to  human  nature,  to  destroy  Pagan- 
ism without  breaking  the  innocent  symbols  of  the 
commerce  between  heaven  and  earth.  But  its  religious 
belief  did  not  make  up  the  essence  of  the  Roman 
civilization  ;  its  primitive  dogma  had  come  from  the 
Etruscans — Greece  had  brought  to  it  its  fables — the 
conquered  East  had  yielded  her  mysteries;  but  that 
which  was  the  exclusive  property  of  Rome  was  her 
genius  for  action,  her  destiny  was  to  realize  on  earth 
the  idea  of  justice  and  found  the  empire  of  Law.* 

A  time  arrived  when  Rome  no  longer  remembered 
the  art  of  conquest,  but  she  was  never  to  forget  the 
secrets  of  government.  The  moment  even  of  her 
deepest  decline,  when  the  barbarians  revenged  them- 
selves upon  her  in  every  place,  ordered  her  proceedings, 
and  debated  with  her  the  figure  of  her  ransom — when 
they  seemed  to  have  entirely  fettered  her  action — was 
the  period  in  which  all  her  power  was  reflected  and 
gathered  up  into  the  codes  of  that  legislation  which 

*  Tu  regcre  impcrio  populos,  Romane,  memento  ; 
Hae  tibi  erunt  artes. 


EOMAN  LAW.  137 

was  sooner  or  later  to  achieve  the  conquest  of  the  bar- 
barians, to  retain  the  world  under  her  tutelage  after  the 
fall  of  her  empire,  and  compel  the  descendants  of  the 
Visigoths,  Burgundians,  and  Franks  to  seat  themselves 
in  the  schools,  and  grow  pale  over  the  test  of  the 
Roman  law.  We  must  study  now  this  great  victory  of 
thought  over  strength,  and  find  the  hidden  force  which 
bore  up  the  Roman  constitution  at  the  beginning  of 
the  fifth  century,  and  what  were  to  be  its  respective 
losses  or  gains  under  the  mighty  blows  which  demolished 
the  empire  of  the  West. 

In  the  first  place  stood  the  mass  of  jurisprudence  of 
the  classic  epoch,  comprising  the  works  of  the  entire 
succession  of  jurisconsults  from  Augustus  to  the  reigns 
of  the  Antonines.  In  order  that  no  doubt  might  arise 
as  to  the  binding  force  of  these  decisions,  a  well-known 
constitution,  issued  under  Theodosius  II.  and  Valen- 
tinian  III.,  in  a.d.  426,  laid  down  that  in  future  the 
writings  of  Papinian,  Paulus,  Gains,  Ulpian,  and  Mo- 
destinus  should  alone  have  force  of  law  ;  that  in  case  of 
difi'erence  of  opinion  the  view  supported  by  the  majority 
should  prevail,  or,  in  the  case  of  equality,  the  position 
taken  by  Papinian.*  It  might  seem  a  rash  measure  to 
canonize,  as  it  were,  opinions,  controversy,  consulta- 
tions, often  contradictory  and  full  rather  of  subtlety 
than  genius,  but  there  may  be  seen  in  it  that  gi-eat 
principle  of  Tradition  providentially  preserved  at  Rome, 
and  it  is  a  happiness  for  posterity  that  those  maxims 
which  the  disasters  of  the  Empire  might  well  have 
crumbled  into  dust  were  thus  preserved,  and  invested 
with  the  character  of  inviolable  law. 

*  Cod.  Theod.  lib.  i.  tit.  4  ;  Lex  prima  de  Responsis  pru- 
dentum. 


138  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

On  tlie  other  hand  stood  the  ever-increasing  collec- 
tion of  the  constitutions  of  princes,  and  especially  of 
Christian  jn-inces.  In  429,  Theodosius  the  Younger 
and  Valentinian  III.,  to  remedy  the  confusion  which  had 
sjDrung  up  among  them,  appointed  a  commission  of 
nine  jurisconsults,  or  men  of  official  rank,  to  make  a 
regular  compilation,  in  sixteen  books,  under  their  re- 
spective titles,  of  those  legislative  enactments  which  bore 
on  public  or  civil  life,  and  to  leave  the  primitive  text,  as 
far  as  necessary  correction  and  clearness  would  allow, 
free  from  contradictory  comments.  Thus  the  whole 
series  of  legislation  of  the  Christian  emperors  was  pre- 
served to  us,  and  respect  was  shown,  notwithstanding 
the  thoroughness  of  the  reaction  which  had  followed 
them,  even  to  the  works  of  Julian. 

Accordingly  the  Roman  society  possessed,  in  430,  two 
systems  of  law,  and  the  barbarians  found  face  to  face,  on 
the  one  hand  ancient  Paganism  tempered  by  the  phi- 
losophy of  the  jurisconsults  themselves,  acting,  as  we 
shall  see,  under  Christian  influences,  and  on  the  other 
Christianity  tempered  by  the  timidity  of  the  emperors, 
who  only  embraced  reforms  already  rough-hewn  by  their 
philosophic  lawyers,  and  measured  out  carefully  the 
blows  they  were  bound  to  strike  at  the  old  institutions  : 
here  pagan  law  just  gilded  by  the  rising  of  Christianity 
— there  the  beginning  of  Christian  jurisprudence  still 
entangled  in  the  last  shades  of  the  darkness  from  which 
the  world  was  issuing. 

We  must  examine  these  two  principles  in  order,  and 
the  result  which  they  had  brought  about.  We  see,  on 
opening  the  text-books  of  the  classic  jurisprudence  of 
the  vaunted  epoch  of  the  Antonines,  that  all  the  lawyers 
whose  writings  Valentinian  had  codified,  recognized  still 


ROMAN    LAW.  139 

as  a  thing  of  the  remote  past  but  as  supreme  and 
permanent,  the  law  of  the  Twelve  Tables.  They  cite, 
comment  on,  and  often  evade  it,  but  still  did  it  homage 
in  refusing  to  ignore,  contravene,  or  abjure  the  edicts 
graven  on  its  bronze  by  the  iron  hand  of  the  decemvirs  : 
it  was  still  thus  a  master  from  whose  scourge  they  sought 
in  vain  to  escape.  Let  us  sketch  in  a  few  words,  not  the 
precepts  but  the  tendency  of  that  ancient  pagan  and 
theocratic  law- system  whose  authority,  secular  in  its 
essence,  the  jurisconsults  did  not  as  yet  dare  con- 
temn. It  was  a  half- sealed  book,  a  collection  of  tradi- 
tions, sacramental  formulas,  and  sacred  rites,  enveloping 
the  law  under  the  same  veils  as  a  religion — a  mass  of 
mysteries  whose  secret  the  patricians  alone  possessed, 
who  as  descendants  of  the  gods  could  alone  know  and 
enounce  law  {jus  ;  fas,  what  is  permitted;  fatum,  the 
right,  the  Divine  will).  Law, in  its  primitive  aspect,  was 
the  true  and  only  recognized  religion  of  Rome.  Its  first 
act  was  to  deify  Rome  herself,  who  became  not  only  the 
shrine  and  dwelling-place  of  an  unknown  genius  to 
whom  altars  were  raised,  and  whose  name  was  known 
only  to  the  initiated,  but  herself  the  mighty  goddess 
who  had  altars  not  only  in  her  peculiar  territory,  but 
amongst  her  conquered  nations,  and  even  in  Asia,  on  the 
shores  of  the  Troad.  As  divine,  her  will  was  justice  ;  the 
law  decided  through  her  curies  was  legitimate  if  ratified 
by  consent  of  the  gods  in  the  taking  of  the  auspices,  and 
which  assumed  a  commerce  between  earth  and  heaven. 
To  give  an  act  life  and  a  divine  character,  its  accom- 
plishment must  be  surrounded  by  rites  and  ceremonies. 
God  Himself  inteiwened  in  the  judgments  and  under 
the  strokes  of  the  magistrate  to  give  peace  to  His  earth  ; 
execution  was  an   act  of  sacrifice  ;  the  tribunal,   as  a 


140  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH   CENTURY. 

sacred  place,  was  to  be  turned  to  the  East,  to  be  closed 
when  the  sun,  type  of  the  ray  of  intellect  by  which 
judgment  is  enlightened,  had  set  on  the  earth.  This 
powerful  theocratic  imprint  was  everywhere  to  be  seen, 
and  underlay  all  the  civilization  of  Paganism.  As 
Rome  was  supreme  in  her  sphere,  so  was  every  father  a 
god  in  his  own  family,  a  genius  sent  for  a  time  here 
below.  His  will  had  all  the  features  of  law  and  resist- 
less destiny,  admitting  no  limit,  stretching  to  the  right 
of  life  and  death  over  his  dependants, — over  his  wife, 
whom  he  could  judge  ;  his  son,  whom  he  could  expose  ; 
his  slave,  whom  he  could  put  to  death. 

Authority,  the  presence  of  irresistible  will  in  all 
human  actions,  marked  Roman  law,  gave  to  it  mystery, 
and  also  provoked  the  greatest  awakening  of  liberty 
which  had  yet  been  seen.  Rome's  very  function,  in  thus 
overstraining  her  principle  of  authority,  was  to  give  a 
greater  volume  to  the  outburst  of  freedom,  and  the 
most  remarkable  sight  her  history  offers  to  us  is  that  of 
the  rigour  of  the  private  prison,  the  sale  of  the  debtor 
cut  piecemeal,  Virginia's  blood  spirting  over  the  de- 
cemvirs, acting  as  God's  incentive  to  that  very  people 
to  show  us  as  an  example  their  eight-century-long 
delivery.  This  was  first  seen  when  the  plebs,  straining 
to  enter  upon  the  sacred  enclosure,  long  defended  by 
the  patrician  order,  tore  from  their  grasp  in  succession 
the  conmihium,  the  magistrate's  offices,  the  auspices  ; 
lastly,  the  very  secrets  of  the  Law,  and  when  the  freed- 
man  Flavius  stole  from  Appius  the  Actions  of  Law, 
the  formulas  of  which  that  patrician  had  drawn  up.* 

The  movement,  begun  under  the  Republic,  lived  on 
under  the  Empire,  which  did  not  close,  as  has  been 
t  Dig.  lib.  i.  tit.  ii.  §  7,  de  Origine  Juris. 


ROMAN   LAW.  141 

erroneously  supposed,  the  history  of  liberty  ;  but  the 
game  changed,  and  whilst  under  the  Eepuhlic  we  see 
the  patrician  city  stormed  and  carried  by  the  plebs,  the 
Empire  shows  us  every  province,  the  whole  West,  be- 
sieging the  imperial  city  to  gain  a  place  at  the  sanctuary 
of  law  and  public  justice.  The  emperor,  often  himself 
a  foreigner,  like  Galba  or  Trajan,  sprung  from  Spain, 
acted  as  their  representative,  as  invested  with  procon- 
sular rank,  and  so  becoming  familiar  with  the  provinces 
whose  natural  protector  he  was.  Caracalla,  after  a  long 
period  of  resistance  and  partial  concession,  threw  down 
every  barrier,  and  in  proclaiming  Rome  the  common 
capital,  with  as  many  citizens  as  she  had  subjects,  im- 
pelled the  Empire  to  its  definitive  destiny.* 

Such  was  the  history  of  the  enfranchisement  of  the 
plebs  and  of  the  Western  provinces,  and  as  races  and 
men  were  pressing  with  such  energy  into  the  precinct 
so  obstinately  guarded.  Justice  also  began  to  find  her 
place  there  through  the  efi'orts  of  the  prœtor. 

Every  year  that  magistrate,  on  entering  office,  pro- 
claimed by  edict  the  principles  on  which  he  would 
administer  justice.  He  was  used  to  interpret  the  iron 
law  of  the  Twelve  Tables  with  equity  and  clemency,  to 
supply  its  lacunœ,  to  throw  light  on  its  obscurity,  and 
softness  over  its  rigour  ;  and  in  this  commenced  that 
struggle  entered  on  by  the  magistrate  against  a  text  he 
was  obliged  to  apply,  regretting  its  harshness,  yet  sub- 
mitting to  its  authority  while  blunting  its  sharp  edge. 
The  prastor  and  jurisconsults,  who  also  had  the  right 
of  extenuating  law  principles,  then  created  the  Useful 
Actions,  in  order  to  supply  what  was  clearly  wanting  in 
the  primitive  system;  and  the  emperors,  opening  their 
*  Diff.  lib.  i.  tit.  v.  de  Statu  homiiium. 


142  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

minds  to  the  light,  called  to  their  aid  such  men  as 
Gains,  Ulpiau,  and  Panlus,  who  were  influenced  by 
the  Stoic  philosophy,  and  supported  it  by  their  autho- 
rity, not  in  Eome  alone  but  throughout  the  Empire. 
The  efi'ort  of  human  reason  developed  under  their 
sanction  a  new  law- system,  in  which  the  law  of  the 
gens  stood  opposed  to  the  civil  law  ;  to  the  civil  family, 
composed  only  of  agnats,  or  relations  on  the  male  side, 
the  natural  family  (cognatio),  comprising  those  related 
through  females  only  ;  to  the  property  of  the  Quirites, 
the  property  by  natural  right,  called  in  bonis  ;^  to 
succession  to  legitimate  descendants  only  as  established 
by  the  Twelve  Tables,  the  right  of  succession  in  all 
alike  to  whose  being  nature  had  given  the  same  author. 
This  was  the  work  of  many  centuries,  at  last  effected 
by  the  conscience-cry  of  the  plebs  and  the  help  of 
philosophy  in  the  shape  of  the  Stoic  lawyers.  It  was 
one  of  the  greatest  spectacles  reason  could  offer,  not  only 
as  showing,  as  in  the  jurisprudence  of  the  Automnes, 
a  triumph  of  good  sense,  of  lucidity  of  thought,  a 
perfect  purity  of  form,  an  edifice  giving  with  unexpected 
felicity  space  and  clearness  of  arrangement  to  the  former 
chaos  of  public  and  domestic  relations,  but  as  a  first- 
fruit  of  satisfaction  to  humanity,  as  tempering  woman's 
lot  by  dower  ;  paternal  authority,  by  suppressing  its  right 
of  life  and  death  ;  the  condition  of  slaves,  by  declaring, 
through  Antoninus  Pius,  to  whoever  could  escape  from 
his  master's  rod  and  embrace  the  prince's  statue,  the 
protection  of  a  magistrate,  who  must  descend  from  the 
tribunal,  cover  him  with  a  fold  of  his  robe,  and  compel 
his  owner  to  transfer  him  to  another  more  humane  than 
himself.* 

*  Inst.  Just.  Dc  his.  qui  siii  vel  alieni  juris  sunt,  §  2. 


KOMAN   LAW.  143 

While  recognizing  the  services  of  human  reason  and 
the  merits  of  this  ancient  jurisprudence,  we  see  heneath 
the  surface  what  was  wanting  to  this  first  effort  of  man's 
intelligence,  the  vices  still  inevitably  lurking  in  it, 
which  gave  it  up  to  the  time  of  which  we  treat  that 
pagan  character  so  difiicult  to  eradicate.  Fiction 
appears  everywhere  ;  a  superstitious  respect  for  a  past 
openly  belauded,  but  secretly  disdained.  The  entire 
labour  of  the  praetor  was  lavished  on  a  succession  of 
subterfuges  by  which  to  evade  a  law  he  dared  not 
overturn,  to  escape  from  their  inflexible  Twelve  Tables, 
not  one  of  whose  long-traced  lines  he  dared  efi"ace.  If, 
for  instance,  they  only  granted  succession  to  relations 
on  the  male  side,  to  grant  it  to  those  of  defunct 
female  descent  a  fiction  was  necessary  by  supposing 
in  the  formula  of  deliverance  the  new  possessor  to  be 
the  heir.  As  the  old  law  willed  that  certain  chattels, 
called  mancipia,  could  only  pass  by  mancijjation, 
or  by  iisucaption,  had  an  article  of  that  class  been 
delivered  to  a  claimant  by  simple  tradition,  and  been 
lost  before  possession  had  been  acquired  by  usucaption, 
property  in  it,  according  to  strict  law,  was  gone,  yet 
the  praetor  allowed  a  revendication,  by  supposing  a 
previous  usucaption  after  the  forms  of  the  publician 
action.  Roman  law,  again,  taking  no  cognizance  of 
foreigners,  afforded  them  no  action  to  enforce  respect 
of  their  rights.  The  actio  furti  would  not,  for  in- 
stance, lie,  as,  according  to  strict  civil  law,  it  was  not 
open  to  a  foreigner  ;  but  the  praetor  would  grant  it  by 
the  fiction  of  supposing  him  a  Roman  citizen.* 

Such  things  were  calculated  sooner  or  later  to  bring 
into  contempt  so  essentially  simple  a  system  of  law. 
*  Gaius,  Com.  iv.  §  54  et  seq. 


144  CIVILIZATION   IN   FITTH   CENTURY. 

This  faithless  superstition  and  dishonest  interpretation 
represents  what  was  passing  in  Paganism  at  large — 
maintenance  of  form  and  absence  of  faith.  The  old  law 
stood  on  the  same  footing  as  the  mythology.  It  was  a 
mere  fable  {carmen  serium)  ;  serious  in  the  sense  of 
having  much  which  was  evil  on  its  pages,  and  also 
a  mere  song,  in  that  its  inspiration  had  ceased.  Men 
listened  to  its  frequent  repetition,  and  then  passed  on, 
to  other  and  graver  occupations.  Not  an  education  of 
some  years  alone,  but  that  of  an  entire  life,  was  neces- 
sary to  find  the  way  through  its  mazes,  which  again 
began  to  contain  a  mystery  in  which  very  few  were 
adepts  ;  only  it  was  no  longer  the  patricians  who  held 
the  deposit,  but  the  school,  the  family  of  juris- 
consults, the  few  devoted  by  the  state  to  the  study  of 
law,  and  who  alone,  in  diving  into  its  recesses,  could 
exercise  that  species  of  priestly  office  which  Ulpian 
defined,  Jus  est  ars  boni  et  œqui  cvjus  merito  qnis  nos 
sacerdotcs  ajjpellet.*  Ammianus  Marcellinus,  living  at 
the  close  of  the  fourth  century,  leaves  us  the  following 
picture  of  the  lawyers  of  his  day  : — "  You  would  think 
they  professed  the  drawing  of  horoscopes  or  unfolding 
the  Sibylline  oracles,  to  see  the  deep  gravity  of  their 
faces,  in  loudly  boasting  of  a  science  wherein  one  can 
merely  grope."  So  the  chief  vice  of  Paganism  had 
not  vanished  ;  still  there  appeared  the  adepts,  few  in 
number  and  without  the  vulgar  herd  ;  philosophy  had 
succeeded  the  old  religions,  detesting,  like  them,  the 
common  people — that  is  to  say,  the  multitude,  humanity 
itself.  Its  second  vice  was  the  maintenance  of  the 
absolute  sovereignty  of  the  state  over  not  property  only, 
but  life,  souls,  and  consciences,  carrying  out  the  old 
*  Dig.  de  Justitia  et  Jui-e,  lib.  i.  tit.  i.  §  1. 


RO^IAN    LAW.  145 

principle  ficcording  to  which  Rome  was  divine  and  so 
was  her  will  ;  and  to  its  legitimate  laws  human  will 
could  find  no  place  of  resistance,  as  no  one  could  be 
right  in  contradicting  the  gods.  But  a  considerable 
change  had  still  come  about,  for  the  name  of  the 
genius  hitherto  dwelling  in  mystery  on  the  Capitol  was 
at  last  revealed.  It  was  sometimes  named  Tiberius, 
or  Nero,  or  Heliogabalus,  and  its  works  were  known  as 
well.  The  Empire  became  an  idolatry,  of  which  the 
Emperor  was  priest  and  god.  Altars  were  raised  to 
him  in  his  lifetime;  his  images  were  sent  in  all  directions, 
to  be  greeted  with  light  and  perfume,  and  thousands  of 
Christians  died  rather  than  cast  on  the  fire  at  their  feet 
some  grains  of  frankincense.  He  was  a  true  god,  in  fact, 
while  living  as  after  death,  ordaining  this,  willing  the 
contrary  on  the  morrow,  exercising  a  tyranny  the  more 
intolerable  from  its  being  exercised  in  a  moral 
sphere,  and  suffering  no  other  will  ;  declaring  to  the 
Christians  by  the  organ  of  the  jurisconsults  that 
their  existence  could  not  be  permitted,  "  non  licet  esse 
vos;"  crushing  the  state-right  itself  in  placing  the  prince 
above  the  law,  princeps  leg'ibus  sohihts  ;  to  which  privi- 
lege it  was  determined  that  the  sovereign,  acceding  to 
her  the  half  of  his  rights,  could  also  raise  his  Empress. 
The  will  of  one  thus  placed  above  all  law  naturally 
became  imperious  and  irresistible,  and  the  conclusion 
of  the  jurisconsults,  quod  pnnc'ipi  placuit  legis  hahct 
vigor  em  utpote  cum  lege  regia  popidus  ei  et  in  eum 
omne  siium  imperiiim  et  potestatem  conferet*  led  to 
that  formula  so  insulting  to  humanity  wherewith  princes 
so  often  have  terminated  their  acts,  "  for  such  is  our  good 
pleasure."     Not  only  did  the  prince's  pleasure  become 

*  Dig.  de  Constit  lib.  i.  tit.  4. 
VOL.  I.  7 


146  CIVILIZATION   IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

the  world's  law,  but  he  owned  beside  the  pontifical  office, 
the  absolute  power  of  making  and  unmaking  legisla- 
tion, and  nearly  the  whole  Roman  territory.  The  soil 
of  the  provinces  had  been  divided  into  two  great  parts  : 
the  tributary,  under  the  Emperor,  and  the  stipendiary, 
depending  on  the  Roman  people.  In  course  of  time  the 
former  succeeded  to  the  latter,  and  thus  the  whole  pro- 
perty in  the  provinces  devolved  on  the  sovereign  so 
thoroughly  that  no  private  person  was  considered  an 
actual  proprietor,  but  only  a  stipendiary  maintained 
and  guaranteed  till  further  notice  in  its  use  by  the 
Imperial  will.*  Hence  no  subject  could  complain  when 
the  most  sacred  treasury  sacratlsslmum  (drarlum  claimed 
some  portion  of  his  goods,  or  when  taxes,  indictions,  or 
superindictions  were  imposed,  or  the  land  itself  dis- 
trained, as  the  prince  only  took  his  own.  On  this  prin- 
ciple stood  the  fiscal  system  of  Rome,  full  of  exactions, 
which  reduced  the  groaning  provinces  to  such  a  pitch  of 
distress  that  the  curia  responsible  for  the  levy  of  the 
impost  was  gradually  deserted  by  the  decurions,  whose 
place  was  filled  by  men  of  evil  life  and  broken  fortunes, 
by  concubinous  priests  and  their  bastard  ofi"spring, 
since  the  honour  had  come  to  be  looked  on  rather  as  a 
disgrace.  The  provincials,  tortured,  forced  to  sell  wife 
and  child  to  satisfy  these  requirements,  began  to  aban- 
don their  lands,  and  to  call  upon  the  barbarians  in  aid, 
assured  of  finding  in  them  less  exacting  masters,  and 
preferring  to  render  them  one  or  two  thirds  of  the  soil 
than  be  subject  to  a'  system  which  carried  off  the  total 
of  their  revenues.  All  the  confusion  at  the  beginning 
of  the  Lower  Empire,  the  responsibility  of  which  has 
been  fixed  upon  the  Christian  emperors,  flowed  natu- 
+  Gaius,  Comm.  ii.  7. 


ROMAN    LAW.  147 

rally  from  principles  long  before  established.  "When 
Aurelian  took  to  himself  the  diadem  of  Persia  and  the 
pomps  of  the  East,  th  n  Diocletian  established  that 
hierarchy  of  officials  which  was  to  crush  the  Empire 
with  its  weight,  and  the  government  in  the  days  of  its 
strength  sowed  the  seeds  of  its  ruin. 

A  third  radical  vice  in  Paganism,  an  unmistakable 
sign  of  its  last  catastrophe,  was  that  terrible  inequality 
which  no  effort  of  reason  could  justify.  At  the  root 
of  its  legislation,  written  though  it  were  by  the  im- 
mortal pen  of  a  Gaius  or  an  Ulpian,  lay  that  heathen 
emanation  principle  which  supposed  that  some  men 
sprang  from  the  head,  others  from  the  belly  or  feet  of 
the  all-pervading  deity.  This  kept- women  in  perpetual 
tutelage,  not  in  the  legitimate  guardianship  of  her 
agnate  alone,  but  in  a  dative  tutelage  restraining  her 
capacity  in  the  most  trifling  actions  of  civil  life.  It  sub- 
jected the  child  to  not  only  the  paternal  right  of  life  and 
death,  but  to  that  of  sale.  He  was  open  to  exposal  on 
his  birth,  condemned  to  a  continual  minority,  whatever 
his  age  or  dignity  might  be,  deprived  of  every  kind  of 
property,  up  to  the  time  of  Constantine,  except  the 
"peculium  castrense,"  or  military  pay.  It  kept  up 
the  servile  system,  the  well-known  horrors  of  which 
existed  not  only  in  the  heroic  and  mythical  ages,  but 
throughout  those  centuries  of  light  and  philosophical 
wisdom  that  were  for  so  many  a  time  of  freedom.  The 
opinions  of  Greek  philosophers  on  the  subject  were  not 
doubtful.  Plato  did  not  admit  slavery  into  the  Re- 
public, but  dared  not  condemn  it  in  his  native  city  ;  and 
Aristotle  gave  human  nature  itself  for  its  cause,  saying 
that  some  were  made  for  rule  and  others  for  obedience. 
Cicero  held  the  same  view.     Cum  autem  hi  famulantur 


148  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

qui  sihi  moderarl  ncqneant  nulla  injuria  est*  "  There 
is  no  injustice  in  making  slaves  of  those  who  know  not 
self-government."  In  his  admirahle  treatise  Dc  OJficiis, 
the  masterpiece  of  ancient  morality,  he  relates,  without 
commentary,  certain  cases  of  conscience  proposed  by  a 
philosojîher  named  Hecaton.  Is  a  master  in  a  famine 
time  hound  to  feed  his  slaves  ?  Economy  says  No  ; 
humanity  Yes.  Hecaton  decides  against  it.f  Suppose 
one's  self  adrift  in  a  small  boat  with  a  had  slave  and  a 
good  horse  on  hoard  ;  a  storm  comes  on,  which  of  the 
two  should  be  thrown  overboard  ?  Hecaton  and  Cicero 
will  not  pronounce  upon  it.  Such  was  the  philosophy 
of  the  best  epoch  of  Rome,  which  time  did  not  do 
much  to  modify.  To  come  down  to  Libanius  :  in  his 
discourse  on  slavery  he  takes  care  not  to  repeat  Chris- 
tian complaints  about  it,  nor  to  let  slip  any  of  the  old 
pagan  traditions  on  the  subject.  Slavery  is  an  evil  com- 
mon to  all  mortals  ;  all  men  serve  either  their  passions 
or  their  business  or  their  duty— ^the  peasant  is  the 
slave  of  wind  and  rain,  the  professor  of  his  audience. 
Slaves  in  name  are  least  slaves  in  reality,  but 
happiest  of  all  in  knowing  nothing  of  hunger, 
that  pitiless  master  ;  happy  in  their  state  of  care- 
less lethargy,  leaving  their  master  the  care  of  finding 
them  food  ;  and  it  is  thus  that  passion  and  selfish- 
ness have  argued  in  every  age  as  to  slaves  of  every 
colour. 

The  opinion  of  the  philosophers  became  the  doctrine 
of  the  jurisconsults,  whose  duty  it  was  to  inspire  theory 
and  reduce  it  to  practice.  The  ancient  law  had  a 
punishment  of  death  for  the  slaughterer  of  a  steer  ;  but 

*  Cic,  quoted  by  Nonius,  de  Rep.  lib.  iii.  c.  xxiii. 
f  Cic.  de  Officiis,  1.  iii.  c.  xxiii. 


ROMAN    LAW.  149 

when  Q.  Flaminius,  the  senator,  to  amuse  an  aban- 
doned youth,  who  was  his  companion,  and  was  regret- 
ting at  never  having  seen  any  one  put  to  death,  cut  the 
head  off  one  of  his  slaves,  it  was  silent,  having  no 
penalty  for  that  kind  of  fault.  They  had  instituted  a 
fine  for  the  murder  of  a  slave,*  but  hastened  to  remedy 
their  weakness  by  taking  back  from  liberty  what  they 
had  granted  to  slavery  ;  and  by  the  laws  .JîZta  Sentia, 
Junia  Norbana,  and  Fusia  Caninia,  they  calmed  the 
terrors  of  the  serious,  who  feared  revolution  on  seeing 
at  some  funeral  games  a  few  freedmen,  clad  in  their 
caps  of  liberty,  taking  their  place  among  citizens,  by 
restraining  the  frequency  of  enfranchisement,  and 
closing  the  city  of  Rome  to  the  freed.  Different  orders 
were  distinguished  in  the  Ser\dle  ranks,  such  as  deditii, 
who  could  never  become  citizens,  and  the  Latini  Juniani, 
who  could  only  become  citizens  in  certain  cases.  The 
senatus  -  consult  of  Silanian,  drawn  up  under 
Claudius,  had  ordained  torture  to  all  his  slaves  upon 
the  violent  death  of  any  man  ;  and  Tacitus  paints 
the  terrified  stupor  of  the  city  when  it  was  one  day 
announced  that  a  senator  had  died  by  violence,  and 
that  his  four  hundred  slaves  were  to  be  put  to  the 
torture.!  Hanging  a  slave  was  forbidden,  but  he 
might  die  under  the  torment,  and  then  his  price  must 
be  paid  to  the  master.  Nourishment  was  due  to  him, 
and  Cato  tells  us  how  a  prudent  head  of  the  family 
should  arrange  the  matter.  "  Pour  tWo  amphorœ  of 
sweet  wine  into  a  cask  ;  add  two  of  very  sharp  vinegar, 
and  as  much  boiled  wine,  to  the  dilution  of  two-thirds, 
with  fifty  amphora?  of  fresh  water.     Stir  up  the  whole 

*  Tacit.  Annal.  1.  xiv.  c.  cxlii.  et  seq. 

+  Wallon  :  Histoire  de  l'Esclavage  dans  l'Antiquité. 


150  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

with  a  stick  for  five  consecutive  days,  and  then  ponr 
in  sixty-four  measures  of  sea-water."*  Paganism 
appears  clearly  here,  and  the  bitter  beverage  that  Cato 
used  to  give  his  slaves  reminds  us  of  a  certain 
sponge  of  vinegar  and  gall  which  another  Eoman,  a 
soldier,  was  to  offer  on  the  lance's  point  to  that 
other  slave  who  was  dying  on  a  cross  for  the  redemp- 
tion of  slaves. 

As  to  their  housing,  Columella  prescribed  "  ergastnla 
suhterranea,"  in  which  openings  were  to  be  contrived  out 
of  reach  of  the  hand,t  either  for  the  purpose  of  pre- 
venting escape,  or  of  cutting  oif  the  sight  of  the  world, 
which  was  denied  them.  Those  employed  at  the  mill 
carried  a  large  wheel  round  their  necks  to  prevent  their 
raising  to  the  mouth  a  handful  of  the  flour  that  they 
sjjent  the  day  in  grinding.  This  deprives  the  Chinese 
of  the  honour  of  having  invented  their  peculiar  mode  of 
torture,  and  it  was  the  mildœt  method  of  treatment,  as 
the  law  of  Antonine  had  not  taken  away  the  right  of 
maldng  eunuchs  of  slaves,  and  they  were  to  be  counted, 
by  troops,  greges  puerorum,  as  well  as  crowds  of 
gladiator-slaves  who  assembled  in  the  lanista,  and 
took  the  terrible  oath  to  let  themselves  be  burnt, 
fettered,  scourged,  and  slaughtered,  uri,  vinciri,  ver- 
hcrarifferroque  necan,\îrioi  men  at  least  merchandise, 
subject-matter  for  contracts  of  sale  and  purchase,  and 
therefore  obliging,  in  some  manner,  the  attention  of 
the  jurisconsults.  Gains,  in  examining  the  difficulties 
which  might  arise  in  certain  cases,  in  declaring  a  con- 
tract to  be  one  of  sale,  or  merely  of  hiring,  proposed 
the  following  question  : — "  If  I  tender  you  a  number 

*  Cato,  de  Ec  Rusticâ. 
t   Coluiii.  1.  vi.  3. 


ROMAN    LAW.  151 

of  gladiators  at  the  rate  of  twenty  cleuarii  ahead  for 
those  who  survive,  as  wages  for  their  toils,  and  a 
thousand  ahead  for  the  dead  and  wounded,  is  there  a 
sale  or  a  letting  ?  The  prevailing  opinion  is  that,  as 
to  the  survivors,  it  is  a  hiring  ;  as  to  dead  or  wounded 
a  sale,  the  event  deciding  it,  as  if  each  slave  was  con- 
ditionally an  object  either  of  sale  or  hire,  for  there  is 
no  doubt  that  either  contract  may  be  subject  to  con- 
ditions."* It  is  a  question  which  is  the  most  wonderful, 
the  calm  of  the  la^^Ter,  or  the  horror  of  the  prevailing 
manners.  And  those  manners  did  not  soften  ;  we  find 
Trojan,  on  his  return  from  Dacia,  putting  to  death 
ten  thousand  gladiators.  Fear  was  expressed  lest  oxen 
should  fail,  but  no  one  seemed  to  fear  a  scarcity  of 
gladiators.  The  Koman  law  of  the  classic  period,  as 
modified  by  the  legislation  of  the  Antonines,  was  certainly 
like  the  Coliseum,  a  splendid  monument,  wherein  men 
were  thrown  to  lions  !  At  the  beginning  of  the  fifth 
century,  all  this  jurisprudence  still  had  force,  and  had 
just  been  invigorated  by  the  law  of  Citations,  under 
Valentinian  III.,  but  happily  for  a  Christian  period,  a 
rival  system  was  rising  in  the  code  inaugurated  by 
Theodosius. 

Christianity  had  early  penetrated  the  Empire,  coming 
as  a  doctrine  that  hated  fiction,  unable  by  reason  of  its 
liberty  to  sufier  enslavement  of  conscience,  or  by  its 
charity  all  those  social  inequalities  which  were  an 
outrage  to  nature.  Yet  it  did  not  aspire  to  change 
violently  the  world's  aspect,  but  rather  to  win  its  point 
slowly  and  with  patience,  and  like  the  Saviour  to  destroy 
slavery  in  becoming  itself  a  slave,  formam  servi  acci- 
2)icns.      "While  Plato  daily  thanked  the  gods  that  he 

*  Gains,  lib.  ni.  §  140. 


152  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

had  been  born  male  rather  than  female,  free  and  not  a 
slave,  a  Greek  instead  of  a  barbarian,  it  proclaimed  by 
St.  Paul  that  there  was  no  longer  male  nor  female,  free 
nor  slave,  Greek  nor  barbarian,  but  one  body  in  Christ 
Jesus,*  a  saying  strong  enough  to  effect  as  ages  passed 
the  great  changes  which  God  had  determined.     It  could 
not  tolerate  imperial  pretensions  over  the  conscience  of 
mankind,  and  whilst  praying  for  its  persecutors  pro- 
claimed that  God  rather  than  man  was  to  be  obeyed. 
Finally  it  repulsed  all  the  pagan  fictions,  but  yet  in  its 
contempt  for  a  law  which  was  reserved  for  a  little  band 
of  experts,  and  hidden  perforce  from  the  multitude,  it 
did  not  profess  to  despise  the  Roman  law-system.    As 
was  declared  in  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  "  God  did 
not  will  that  His  justice  should  be  shown  forth  only  by 
us,   but  let  it  shine   in  the   Roman  laws  ;  "    and  St. 
Augustine  said,  "  Leges  Eomanoriim  divluitus  per  ora 
jjrincijnim  emanaruut."      It  received  these  laws  with 
admiration,  recognizing  in  them  the  light  which  lightens 
every  man  coming  into  the  world  that  he  might  know 
and  adore  his  God,  and  was  forced  to  toil  with  patience 
to  reform  in  accordance  with  its  principles  the  legisla- 
tion whose  vices  we  have  examined.     Its  presence  was 
early  suspected  and  soon  perceived,  but  this  is  not  the 
place  for  showing  how  the  new  society  toiled   in  its 
catacombs,  hidden  deep  under  another  hostile  society 
whose  reform  it  had  entered  upon;  how  in  every  rank  of 
public  and  domestic  life,  in  the  senate  and  the  foulest 
ergastula,  it  knew  how  to  mould  disciples  and  to  en- 
lighten and  modify  the  manners  of  the  time.  It  has  been 
pointed  out  how  St.  Paul,  by  his  speech  on  Areopagus, 
his  dispute  with  Stoics  and  Epicureans,  his  apology  at 
*  1  Corinth,  vii.  2:2,  xii.  13  ;  Romans  i.  14. 


ROMAN   LAW.  153 

Corinth  before  the  Roman  magistrate,  Annœus  Gallic, 
must  have  roused  the  opinions  of  his  contemporaries 
and  of  those  Greeks  and  philosophers  so  greed}-  of 
noveltv  ;  in  particular,  Gallio  must  have  informed  his 
beloved  brother  Seneca,  who  dedicated  to  him  his 
treatises  De  Ira  and  De  Vita  Bcatâ,  of  the  fame  and 
doctrines  of  that  Grascized  Jew  who  went  to  make 
proselytes  at  Rome  in  the  very  j)a] ace  of  Nero.  Seneca's 
own  doctrines  bear  witness  to  the  necessary  contact 
between  Pagan  and  Christian  philosophy.  His  stoicism 
put  in  the  place  of  the  ancient  fatum,  the  third  arbiter 
of  our  destinies,  a  Providence,  a  Di\ine  Father,  to 
honour  and  obey  ;  it  gave  him  faith  in  the  soul's  immor- 
tality, and  the  conflict  here  below  between  spirit  and 
flesh,  an  enemy  to  be  conquered  only  by  Di\-ine  help, 
namely  grace,  and  filled  him  with  a  singular  pity  for  all 
human  sorrow,  and  especially  for  his  enslaved  fellow- 
creature.  It  is  pleasant  to  believe  that  this  Stoic  bore 
the  impress  of  a  Christian  philosopher,  who  was  at 
Rome  in  the  time  of  Seneca,  and  was  destined  to  die 
there  more  gloriously  than  himself. 

It  seems  inevitable  that  the  Christians,  daily  increas- 
ing in  numbers,  filling  the  forum,  the  senate,  and  the 
army,  with  the  apologies  of  Quadratus,  Bishop  of  Athens, 
of  Athenagorus,  St.  Justin,  Tertullian,  and  the  senator 
Apollonius,  circulating  through  every  rank  of  society, 
should  influence  the  Stoic  philosophy  and  the  juris- 
consults through  it.  Their  admission  to  the  councils 
of  Alexander  Severus,  who  adored  amongst  his  lares 
the  image  of  Christ,  and  inscribed  in  golden  letters  on 
his  palace  walls  the  maxims  of  Christianity,  points  to 
the  gi'owing  force  of  the  new  religion.  The  plagiarism 
of  the  jurisconsults  from  its  sources,  though  denied 

7  1 


154  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

on  account  of  tlieir  inveterate  hostility,  was  but  the 
last  resource  of  a  baffled  enemy,  trying  to  disarm  truth 
by  borrowing  its  principles,  "which  were  attracting  every 
heart.  Julian  meant  this  in  advising  the  pagans  about 
him  to  imitate  the  Christian  priests  and  open  hospitals  ; 
and  the  jurisconsults  laboured  to  disarm  the  Gospel  by 
infusing  it  into  Eoman  law,  that  there  might  remain  no 
excuse  for  reforming  a  society  open  to  legitimate  pro- 
gress, or  to  destroy  a  religion  so  capable  of  wholesome 
reform. 

When  Christianity  ascended  the  throne  with  Con- 
stantine,  far  from  exacting  too  much  and  assuming 
empire  as  a  conqueror,  it  continued  its  course  with  the 
same  calmness.  Constantine  acted  with  caution,  re- 
taining the  title  of  Supreme  Pontiff,  and  still  issuing 
edicts  as  to  the  manner  of  consulting  the  auspices.  The 
tactics  of  his  successors  were  similar  :  one  advanced, 
another  drew  back,  but  all  hesitated,  and  the  Theodosian 
Code  still  preserved  slavery,  divorce,  concubinage,  ine- 
quality between  man  and  wife,  and  father  and  son, 
though  three  great  novelties  found  place  in  it.  In  the 
first  place  an  effort  was  made  to  give  to  law  a  character 
of  publicity  and  sincerity.  Under  Constantine  the 
sacramental  formulas  relating  to  wills,  stipulations, 
and  other  acts  of  civil  life,  the  sacramental  syllables, 
called  by  the  Christian  emperors  aucuixitio  syllahariim, 
as  well  as  the  whole  system  of  juridical  subtleties,  fell 
to  the  ground  ;  and  by  determining  the  names  of  the 
jurists  whose  decisions  should  have  force,  and  uniting 
in  one  code,  as  was  the  case  under  Theodosius  and 
Valentinian,  the  scattered  edicts  of  the  Christian  princes, 
a  popular  and  accessible  form  was  given  to  the  law. 
Secondly,  the  temporal  and  spiritual  orders  were  sepa- 


KOMAN    LAW.  155 

rated,  and  in  this  respect  advance  was  less  easy,  for, 
as  Constantine  had  retained  the  title  of  pontiff,  his 
successors  were  willing  to  believe  that  the  religion  of 
the  Empire  alone  had  changed,  and  not  their  old  su- 
premacy over  the  conscience.  The  Church  had  to  labour 
perseveringly  in  preventing  their  usurpation  of  the  right 
of  convoking  and  presiding  in  her  councils,  saying  in 
the  words  of  Lucifer  of  Cagliari,  "What!  are  we  to 
respect  your  diadems,  bracelets,  and  earrings,  and 
despise  the  Creator?"  The  declaration  wrnng  from 
Theodosius  and  Valentinian,  "  It  is  worthy  of  a  prince's 
majesty  to  pronounce  himself  bound  by  the  laws," 
ended  the  struggle  by  the  victory  of  the  Church,  and 
then  the  monarch  became  subject  to  law,  and  the  tem- 
poral power  took  up  the  less  splendid  but  firmer  position 
assigned  it  in  the  Gospel:  "Let  him  who  would  be 
first  be  the  servant  of  all."  In  the  last  place,  the  hands 
of  the  emperors  touched  with  healing  the  three  great 
wounds  humanity  bore  in  the  injury  done  to  women, 
children,  and  slaves.  Constantine  gave  mothers  a  larger 
share  in  succession  to  their  children,  forbade  exposing 
infants,  and  punished  the  child  murderer  in  the  same 
measure  as  the  parricide.  He  abolished  crucifixion  as 
a  punishment  for  slaves,  issued  an  edict  against  the 
gladiatorial  combats,  "not  willing,"  as  he  said,  "such 
bloody  sights  in  the  midst  of  the  Peace  of  the  Empire," 
and  condemned  to  death  the  master  who  had  killed  a 
slave.  "  Let  masters  use  their  right  with  clemency, 
and  let  that  man  be  held  a  murderer  who  shall  have 
slain  his  slave  voluntarily  by  blows  of  rods  or  of  stones, 
or  by  mortally  wounding  him  with  a  dart,  who  shall 
have  hung  him  by  a  halter,  or  by  cruel  order  had  him 
thrown  into  an  abyss,  or  made  him  drink  poison,  or 


156  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

caused  savage  beasts  to  tear  his  body,  or  branded  his 
flesh  with  burning  coals,  or  in  frightful  torment  caused 
life  to  flee  from  his  bloody  and  foam-flecked  limbs  with 
a  fierceness  worthy  only  of  barbarians."  *  This  eloquent 
law,  dated  a.d.  319,  well  expresses  the  Christian  in- 
dignation at  the  horrors  of  slavery,  and  shows  the 
Church,  just  clothed  with  the  purple,  hastening  to  make 
a  law  in  favour  of  her  enslaved  children. 

In  this  manner  did  the  Theodosian  Code  remedy  the 
triple  outrage  offered  by  the  old  system  to  liberty, 
truth,  and  humanity,  in  slavery  and  domestic  inequality. 
It  was  no  wonder  that  the  reading,  by  the  Prefect  of 
Eome  and  the  consuls,  of  the  edict  inaugurating  the 
Theodosian  Code  throughout  the  Empire  was  received 
by  the  senate  with  magnificent  applause. t  The  last 
minutes  of  its  sittings  contained  this  ratification,  and 
its  acclamations  must  have  penetrated  to  the  camp  of 
the  barbarians,  already  established  in  a.d.  438,  on 
Roman  territory.  At  the  very  moment  when  the  Van- 
dals were  masters  of  Africa,  the  Burgundians  and 
Visigoths  of  Gaul  and  Spain,  and  Attila  was  advancing 
at  the  head  of  his  Huns,  by  a  sublime  coincidence 
the  legislation  was  proclaimed  which  was  destined  to 
master  the  future.  Its  fame  was  to  reach  those  bar- 
barians, whose  kings  would  seek  to  know  the  great  idea 
of  Roman  law  which  was  never  to  abandon  them.  The 
edict  of  Theodosius,  in  the  year  590,   proclaimed  the 

*  Cod,  Just.  ix.  li,  de  Emeudatione  Servorum.  Cod.  Theod. 
lib.  ix.  tit.  xii.  c.  1. 

f  The  senate  exclaimed,  "  May  God  preserve  you,  Augustus  ! 
(27  times).  You  have  taken  all  doubt  from  the  edicts  (2.'3  times). 
You  labour  for  public  justice  aiul  for  our  peace  ("25  times).  From 
you  we  hold  our  honoiu'S.  our  patrimony,  all  our  possessions 
(28  times).  Spare  this  code  the  danger  of  interpolations'' 
(25  times). 


KOMAN    LAW.  157 

Theodosian  Code  the  law  of  the  Ostrogoths  ;  Alaric 
gave  his  subjects,  a  few  years  later,  the  "  Breviarium 
Alaricanum,"  extracted  from  the  same  code  ;  and  in 
534  the  "  Papiani  Responsa,"  in  great  measure  col- 
lected from  it  again,  appeared  for  the  use  of  the 
Roman  subjects  of  the  Burgundians.  Nor  was  its 
destiny  to  end  there  ;  it  was  taught  throughout  Gaul, 
particularly  in  the  schools  of  Clermont,  during  the 
sixth  and  seventh  centuries.  Carried  into  England  to 
the  school  of  York,  into  Germany  in  the  peaceful 
train  of  conquering  Boniface,  it  was  to  serve  as  basis 
to  the  capitularies  of  Frankish  kings,  and  thus  pene- 
trating into  all  the  barbarian  legislation,  to  give  it 
temper,  enlightenment,  and  system. 

It  is  true  that  the  barbarian  chiefs  were  no  less 
taken  by  its  faults  than  by  its  merits,  and  did  not 
shrink  from  assuming  the  heirship  of  the  Roman 
emperors  with  regard  to  their  subjects'  goods.  In  this 
spirit  Frederick  Barbarossa  caused  his  lawyers  to 
decide,  at  Roncaglia,  that  as  Trajan's  heir  he  was 
absolute  master  of  his  subjects'  property;  the  same 
doctrine  was  adopted  by  Louis  XIV.  in  speaking  of 
his  royal  goods,  "  of  which  part  are  comprised  in  our 
demesne,  the  rest  left  by  our  good  pleasure  in  the 
hands  of  our  subjects;"  and  such  pagan  traditions  have 
been  handed  down  to  become,  under  other  forms,  the 
gravest  danger  of  the  present  day. 

The  last  traditions  of  divorce  in  the  family  were  to 
disappear  in  the  gi-eat  struggle  of  the  Papacy  against 
Philip  Augustus  and  Henry  IV.  Slaves  gradually 
were  to  become  serfs,  and  serfs  freemen.  Lastly,  the 
great  principle  of  the  separation  of  the  spiritual  and 
temporal  orders  was  to  gain  its  victory  at  the  moment 


158  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

wlien  Gregory  VII.  gave  out  his  dying  cry,  "  I  fought 
for  justice,  and  therefore  am  dying  in  exile."  He  died, 
but  the  principle  which  he  supported  so  vigorously 
gained  a  stronger  life,  for  the  ideas  which  save  the 
human  race  are  those  which  suffer  all  that  is  mortal  in 
them  to  perish. 

Roman  law  was  to  rule  the  world  on  condition  of 
the  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  ;  nothing  less  was 
required  to  dissipate  the  mist  of  legal  fiction  and  the 
remnant  of  that  deep  discord  which  was  rooted  in  the 
old  system.  The  swords  of  Attila  and  Odoacer  were 
to  banish  the  lingering  phantom  of  the  imperial 
throne,  and  to  give  breathing  space  to  the  world,  to 
revive  the  soul  of  the  old  law  on  that  principle  of 
natural  equity  which  began  its  struggle  in  the  blood  of 
Virginia  and  on  the  Sacred  Hill,  continued  it  by 
tribune's  word  and  praetor's  edict,  found  a  new  power 
in  the  Stoic  philosophy,  and  its  ultimate  triumph  in 
Christianity.  When  stripped  of  its  trappings  of  gold 
and  purple,  of  imperial  pomp  and  human  circum- 
stance, it  issued  forth  lord  of  the  world  at  the  moment 
of  its  apparent  dissolution. 


159 


CHAPTER  VI. 

PAGAN    LITERATURE. ^I.    POETRY. 

The  deeper  we  penetrate  Roman  society  of  the  fifth 
century  the  more  obvious  appears  its  necessary,  but 
not  total  dissolution.  In  religion  and  law  we  have 
already  seen  the  mixture  of  perishable  elements  and 
the  immortal  principles  which  were  to  survive  gaining, 
rather  than  losing,  from  the  destruction  of  the  former. 
Literature  would  seem  to  afford  a  different  spectacle  ; 
that  if  the  idea  of  holiness  was  veiled  from  antiquity 
by  carnal  and  bloody  thoughts,  that  of  justice  troubled 
by  the  arrogance  of  the  strong  and  their  oppression  of 
the  weak,  it  at  least  had  nothing  to  correct,  nothing  to 
lose,  without  irreparable  loss  for  the  future,  and  that  in 
respect  to  art,  those  men  of  the  North,  Celts,  Germans, 
Sclaves,  just  coming  from  their  forests,  could  do  nothing 
better  than  learn  at  the  feet  of  Latin  masters  their 
eloquence  and  poetry.  But  it  was  not  so  ;  the  fifth 
century  preserved  the  traditions  of  art,  but  overlaid  by 
all  the  defects  and  vices  of  the  Decline,  and  we  shall  see 
what  forces  had  to  be  overcome  in  order  to  set  her  free. 
The  Latin  decline  in  literature  began  with  the  reign 
of  Augustus,  simultaneously  ^"ith  the  end  of  liberty. 
The  historical  commonplace,  that  inspiration  can  only 
flourish  with  freedom,  seems,  indeed,  contestable,  and 
expressly  belied  by  facts,  as  in  the  case  of  this  very  age 


160  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

of  Augustus,  that  of  tlie  Medicis,  and  of  Louis  XIV., 
and  every  other  in  which  a  huge  despotism,  covered  with 
a  shadow,  deadly  to  Hberty,  heneficial  to  genius,  the 
whole  aspect  of  things.  But  the  defenders  of  this  posi- 
tion forget  that  the  great  princes  who  have  given  name 
to  these  golden  ages  of  letters  have  not  opened,  but 
closed  them,  and,  therefore,  left,  as  it  were,  their  in- 
scription on  their  sepulchres.  Augustus  began  by  sell- 
ing to  Antony  the  head  of  Cicero  ;  and  so  calming,  as, 
according  to  his  contemporaries,  he  calmed  everything 
— even  eloquence — he  rather  extinguished  it,  and  though 
surrounded  forthwith  by  poets,  they  had  received  their 
training  in  the  midst  of  the  civil  war,  within  hearing  of 
Philippi  and  Actium.  Later,  the  Medicis  embraced 
Italian  literature,  still  quivering  with  Guelph  or  Ghibe- 
line  passion  and  the  breath  of  Dante,  to  leave  it  to 
slumber  for  three  centuries  at  the  feet  of  women. 
Louis  XIV.  was  heir  to  a  century  still  seething  with  the 
tempest  of  the  League  and  the  generous  errors  of  the 
Fronde,  but  entered  upon  another  destined  to  waste 
itself  in  the  antechambers  of  courtesans  and  courtiers  ; 
so  that  all  these  Msecenas  patrons  of  literature's  golden 
age  did  but  raise  a  common  though  splendid  sepulchre 
for  both  liberty  and  genius. 

Advancing  into  the  ages  of  the  Empire,  servitude  be- 
comes heavier,  and  its  shadows  more  obscure.  Yet  the 
reigns  of  Christian  emperors,  often  accused  of  hastening 
the  Decline,  in  giving  some  liberty  to  men's  minds,  re- 
stored a  particle  of  inspiration  to  literature.  Symma- 
chus,  an  unsuspected  witness,  tells  us  that  Valentinian, 
after  Julian's  philosophic  reign,  restored  public  judicial 
debates,  and  as  a  pagan  author,  praises  him  for  putting 
an  end  to  the  silence.     If  eloquence  could  revive  at  all, 


PAGAN    LITERATUKE, — POETRY.  161 

it  would  have  been  at  these  Roman  tribunals,  haunted 
by  such  great  memories,  still  instinct  with  the  genius 
of  Cicero  :  but  it  was  not  destined  to  gain  recognition 
beyond  their  precincts. 

Poetry,  favoured  by  Constantine's  liberality,  regained 
an  inspiration  to  which  she  had  been  a  stranger  nearly 
three  hundred  years.  The  fifth  century  offering  to  our 
view  at  first  sight  only  palace  intrigues,  and  the 
quarrels  of  eunuchs,  was  of  all  centuries  the  most 
capable  of  inspiring  a  great  epic  poem.  Rome  had 
always  loved  the  heroic  songs  which  brought  back  to 
life  the  glory  of  her  great  men  and  military  achieve- 
ment ;  but  she  required  a  form  of  poetry  known  to, 
but  not  preferred  by,  Greece — the  historic  form, 
rather  than  the  mythical  epopee,  and  from  the 
"Annals"  of  Ennius  to  the  "  Pharsalia  "  of  Lucan 
and  the  "Punic  War"  of  Silius  Italicus  claimed  as 
especially  her  own  the  poets  who  followed  the  course  of 
her  history,  and  expressed  it  in  language  worthy  of  its 
glory.  The  scene  was  now  enlarged,  the  struggle 
grown  more  terrible.  The  barbarians  were  at  her  gates. 
Though  always  conquered  and  repulsed  by  the  prowess 
of  Constantine,  the  sense  of  Julian,  the  genius  and 
firmness  of  Theodosius,  no  one  could  tell  which  way 
the  balance  held  by  Fate  would  incline.  And  another 
mightier  and  more  lasting  conflict  was  proceeding  ;  and 
as  the  poet  showed  us  from  Trojan  ramparts  the  pha- 
lanxes of  heaven  joined  in  battle  far  above,  so  we  see 
far  over  these  earthly  contests  the  great  duel  between 
Paganism  and  Christianity  being  fought  out  ;  no 
one  unenlightened  by  Christian  principle  being  on 
the  morrow  of  Julian's  death  able  to  predict  the 
issue.     Here,  as  in  the  "  Iliad,"  a  world- struggle  was 


162  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

in  progress,  not  between  East  and  West  alone,  but  be- 
tween two  halves  of  the  human  race,  and  it  was  again 
as  if  the  immortals  had  descended  from  the  clouds  to 
fight  under  the  light  of  day  in  the  thickest  of  the 
battle.  But  the  poet  was  wanting  to  describe  it,  or 
rather  he  was  there,  but  mistook  its  meaning. 

The  poet  of  the  fifth  century  was  Claudian,  a  native 
of  the  learned  city  of  Alexandria,  and  of  that  Egypt 
under  whose  vaunted  sky  the  labourer,  served  by  the 
waters  of  Nile,  need  never  call  the  clouds  to  his  help. 
He  sang  passionately  of  his  city,  wherein  the  whole 
learning  of  ancient  time  was  stored — parent  of  Calli- 
machus  and  Apollonius,  at  whose  schools  Virgil  and 
Horace  had  not  disdained  to  study,  and  the  poet  him- 
self had  been  formed  and  trained.  In  395  he  appeared 
in  still  pagan  Rome  amidst  universal  homage  from 
the  partisans  of  the  old  cult,  who  were  overjoyed  at 
hearing  the  brilliant  youth  belaud  their  gods  at  the 
moment  when  their  fall  had  been  proclaimed.  Public 
admiration  bore  him  to  the  highest  honours,  and  leave 
was  obtained  from  Christian  emperors  to  erect  him  a 
statue  in  Trajan's  forum  beside  the  great  poets  of  anti- 
quity, bearing  on  the  base  an  inscription  ascribing  to 
him  Virgil's  intelligence  and  Homer's  muse.* 

In  obtaining  such  favours  for  him  a  more  powerful 
protector  was  joined  with  the  senate  in  the  person  of 
Stilicho,  to  whose  suite  the  poet  was  attached.  He  sang 
of  his  victories,  combats,  repose,  pleasures,  vices,  and 
crimes,  and  accompanied  the  tutor  of  Honorius,  the 
conqueror  of  the  Goths,  to  the  end  of  his  career,  and 

*  Ell»  tv\  BipyiKioio  v6ov  kuX  fiova-av  'Oixrjpov 
KXavdiavov  Vwixrj  Kai  ^ua-iXrjs  edfcrav. 

UuKLLi  :  Inscrit.  Lai.  Col.  No.  1182. 


PAGAN   LITEEATURE. POETRY.  163 

when  be  perished  at  the  assassin's  hand  was  sprinkled 
with  his  blood.  Claudian  thereupon,  in  disgrace  and 
persecuted,  addressed  a  poem  to  Adrian,  the  praetorian 
prefect,  to  implore  him  to  show  pity,  to  stay  his  baud, 
and  suffer  him  to  breathe  freely  in  retirement,  and,  with 
the  deplorable  license  of  flattery,  comparing  the  prefect 
to  Achilles,  reminded  him  that  he  did  not  show  fury 
over  the  remains  of  Hector. 

Manibus  Hectoreis  ati'ox  ignovit  Achilles.* 

This  man's  genius  lay  precisely  in  bis  errors.  Born  in 
a  Christian  age,  he  lived  by  power  of  an  intense  imagi- 
nation, surrounded  by  the  associations  of  pagan  anti- 
quity, and  like  the  gods  who  walk  the  earth  in  mist,  so 
he  could  only  speak  in  an  atmosphere  of  fable  which  hid 
the  truth.  At  this  epoch  temples  were  everj^'here  being 
closed,  except  at  Eome,  where,  however,  the  Galilsean 
Fisherman  bad  conquered  Jupiter  Olympus  ;  yet  be 
began  a  Gigantomachia,  to  celebrate  Jove's  victory  over 
the  giants.  As  the  time  was  approaching  for  the  temple 
of  Ceres  at  Catania  to  receive  the  image  of  the 
Blessed  Virgin  on  its  altar,  he  was  composing  a  poem 
in  three  books  on  the  Rape  of  Proserpine.  The 
genii  of  the  levelled  temples,  the  inspiration  of  the 
Delphic  tripod,  bad  passed  on  to  his  lips  to  bring  forth 
no  eloquent  defence  or  apology  of  his  menaced  gods 
that  would  link  his  fame  to  that  of  Symmachus,  and 
confute  those  of  the  most  glorious  confessors,  but  only 
to  teach  us,  with  great  noise  and  parade,  how  the 
infernal  god  carried  Ceres'  lovely  daughter  from  the 
meadows  of  Enna  :  • 

*  Claudiani  Epistola,  i.  13. 


164  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUKT. 

Infemi  raptoris  eqnos,  efflataque  curru 
Sidera  TtBiiario,  caligautesque  profundse 
Juuonis  thalamos,  audaci  prodere  cantu 
Mens  congesta  jubet.* 

But  it  was  not  mere  fancy  ;  in  Claudian's  errors  and 
forgetfulness  there  was  plenty  of  political  significance. 
The  pagan  society  that  had  received  the  new  comer  with 
transport  and  loaded  him  with  favours,  in  making  him 
the  poet  of  its  predilection,  and  which  consisted  chiefly 
of  the  senatorial  families,  had  embraced  the  policy, 
according  to  the  speech  of  Sallust  the  rhetorician  to 
Julian,  of  treating  Christianity  as  a  passing  whim  of 
some  infatuated  minds,  which  would  soon  fade  and 
leave  them  to  return  to  the  religion  of  their  ancestors. 
Pagans,  formerly  so  disturbed  at  these  Christians, 
whom  they  had  treated  to  menace,  to  the  arenas,  execu- 
tioners, or  lions,  whom  they  had  accused  of  treason  and 
a  desire  to  undermine  the  Empire,  contented  themselves 
now  with  the  calmer  method  of  ignoring  them  as  of 
little  account  at  present,  and  to  be  non-existent  to 
posterity.  Claudian  passed  without  recognition  amidst 
the  Christian  glories  of  the  century,  in  ignorance  of 
St.  Augustine  and  St.  Ambrose,  who  did  him  on  the 
contrary  the  honour  of  quoting  from  his  writings,  never 
attacking  Christianity  directly  but  once  in  his  private 
life,  when  he  hurled  the  following  epigram  at  Jacobus, 
a  military  prefect,  for  the  great  crime  of  disapproving 
his  poetry  : 

*  My  mind,  swollen  (with  poetry),  bids  me  set  forth  in  bold 
verse  the  horses  of  the  lu;llisli  ravishcr,  the  stars,  the  Tajnarian 
chnriot,  and  profound  Juno's  misty  couch. — Ve  Rnptu  Proser- 
pinif:,  lib.  i.  1-i. 


PAGAN   LITERATURE. — POETRY.  165 

Per  cineres  Pauli,  per  cani  limina  Petri, 
Ne  lacères  versiis,  dux  Jacobe,  meos. 

Sic  tua  pro  clypeo  sustentet  pectora  Thomas, 
Et  comes  ad  bellum  Bartholoma^us  eat. 

Sic  ope  sanctorum,  non  barbarus  iiTuat  Alpes  ; 
Sic  tibi  det  vires  sancta  Susanna  tuas.* 

So  the  use  of  sarcasm  against  Christianity  is  not 
modern,  and  in  writing  a  history  of  Voltairianism  we 
have  to  go  back  long  before  Voltaire. 

But  the  Roman  aristocracy  rarely  allowed  its  poet 
such  compromising  liberties,  for  it  had  other  services  to 
extract  from  him.  Claudian  had  been  made  the  poet 
laureate  of  its  solemnities,  of  its  interests,  and  of  its 
passions.  He  was  its  spokesman  ;  not,  indeed,  in  prose, 
which  might  have  incurred  blame  through  excess,  but 
in  the  language  of  the  gods,  which  could  be  accused  of 
no  liberty,  and  in  which  he  might  recall,  from  time  to 
time,  expressions  of  Virgil  or  of  Homer.  He  was 
spokesman  in  those  great  events  which  were  stirring 
every  mind,  the  war  against  Gildo  or  Alaric,  the 
fall  of  Rufinus  or  Eutropius  ;  and  then  it  was  that  he 
appeared  at  Rome,  Milan,  or  Ravenna  before  Honorius, 
Stilicho,  and  the  high  dignitaries  of  the  Empire,  to  speak 
in  the  name  of  the  great  senatorial  assembly  and  the 
aristocracy  of  Rome  ;  to  treat  these  Christian  poten- 
tates as  he  would  have  treated  Augustus  and  his  court  ; 
to  envelop  them  in  a  cloud  of  words  breathing,  as  it  were, 
*  idolatrous  incense  and  the  perfume  of  sacrifice  ;  and 
entangle  them  in  a  sort  of  complicity  with  the  Paganism 

*  By  the  ashes  of  Paul,  by  hoary  Peter's  shrine,  hurt  not,  O 
Jacob,  my  verses.  If,  instead  of  shield,  Thomas  protect  thy 
breast  and  Bartholomew  goes  with  thee  to  battle  as  companion  ; 
if  by  the  aid  of  the  saints  the  barbarian  maj^  not  cross  the  Alps  ; 
so  may  also  holy  Susanna  give  tliee  her  strength. —  Cladd. 
Epig.  27. 


166  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

whicli  they  were  not  strong  enough  to  disperse.  Had 
he  to  praise  Theodosius,  he  represented  him,  after  giving 
his  last  advice  to  Stjlicho,  as  taking  flight  for  heaven, 
hke  Komulus  of  old,  traversing  the  milky  way,  cleaving 
to  right  and  left  the  shadows  which  pressed  respectingly 
on  his  course,  leaving  far  behind  him  Apollo,  Mercury, 
and  Jupiter,  and  taking  his  place  on  the  highest 
summit  of  the  empyrean,  whilst  his  star  rose  in  the 
east,  to  take  another  loving  glance  at  his  son  Arcadius, 
and  set  regretfully  on  the  dominions  of  Honorius,  in 
the  Western  Empire.  Thus  did  the  poet  of  this  century 
sing  of  the  apotheosis  of  the  greatest  defenders  and 
crowned  servants  of  Christianity.  Still  holder  and  freer 
was  his  tone  in  addressing  the  young  Honorius,  not 
hesitating  on  the  occasion  of  his  marriage  to  Mary  to 
picture  Love  and  Cupid  coming  to  pierce  the  heart  of 
the  prince  with  their  darts,  and  departing  to  boast  of 
his  exploits  to  Venus  in  her  Cyprian  palace,  of  which 
he  gave  a  sounding  description.  The  goddess,  borne 
by  a  triton,  crossed  the  seas,  arrived  at  Eavenna,  and 
entering  the  palace  of  the  espoused,  found  them  reading 
the  ancient  poets.  The  odes  of  Sappho  (the  reading 
of  which  pagans  forbade  to  their  children)  was  what 
Claudian  placed  in  the  hands  of  the  young  bride  of 
Honorius.* 

But  there  was  a  greater  solemnity  for  him.  In  the 
year  404,  when  Honorius  had  reigned  nine  years,  pre- 
ferring the  Christian  city  of  Eavenna  to  Eome,  which 
was  still  bound  to  the  false  gods,  and  having  issued 
three  edicts  against  Paganism,  he  decided,  after  long 
hesitation,  to  go  to  Eome,  to  celebrate  his  sixth  consu- 
late. He  took  possession  of  the  old  palace  of  Augustus, 
*  Dc  Nuptiis  Hoiiorii  et  Mariœ,  v.  235. 


PAGAN   LITEEATURE. — POETEY.  167 

on  the  Palatine,  and  gathered  around  him  that  divided 
Senate,  the  majority  of  which  was  still  deploring  the 
overthrow  of  the  altar  of  Victory.  In  that  great 
assembly,  wherein  the  Christians  preponderated  by 
influence,  if  not  by  number,  Claudian  came  forward 
charged  to  make  known  the  wishes  of  the  Senate  and 
people,  and  from  a  parchment  on  which  his  verses  were 
written  in  letters  of  gold  related  a  dream: — "Balmy 
sleep  gives  back  to  our  calmed  hearts  all  the  thoughts 
that  during  the  day  have  troubled  our  souls.  The 
hunter  dreams  of  the  woods,  the  judge  of  his  tribunal, 
and  the  skilful  rider  thinks  in  sleep  to  pass  a  fancied 
goal.  Me,  also,  does  the  worship  of  the  muses  pursue 
in  the  silence  of  night,  and  brings  me  back  to  an  accus- 
tomed task.  I  dreamt  that  in  the  midst  of  heaven's 
starry  vault  I  was  bringing  my  songs  to  the  feet  of 
mighty  Jove,  and,  as  sleep  has  its  sweet  illusions, 
thought  I  saw  the  hallowed  choir  of  the  gods  applaud- 
ing my  words.  I  sang  of  the  vanquished  giants, 
Enceladus  and  Typhœus,  and  of  the  joy  with  which 
heaven  received  Jupiter,  all  radiant  with  triumph.  But 
no  vain  image  deceived  me.  No  ivory  gate  sent  me 
forth  a  deceitful  vision.  Here  is  the  prince,  the  world's 
master,  high  as  Olympus.  There  in  truth  that  assembly 
which  I  saw,  an  assembly  of  gods.  Sleep  could  show 
me  nothing  more  excellent,  and  the  Court  has  rivalled 
heaven."*  Nothing  at  once  more  polished  or  more 
pagan  could  be  said. ,  After  this  brilliant  exordium 
he  continued.     First    he  vowed   a  temple  to  Fortune 

*  En  princeps,  en  orbis  apex  tequahis  Olympo  ! 
En,  quales  memini,  turba  verenda.  Deos  ! 
Fingere  nil  niajus  pohiit  sopor  ;  altaque  vati 
Conventum  coclo  pr?ebiiit  aula  parem. 

Claud,  de  Sext.  Consul.  Honor.  'Prcfatio,  l-2o. 


168  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

(Fortuna  redux),  since  Rome  and  the  consulate  had 
recovered  tlieir  majesty.  When  Apollo  abandoned 
for  a  moment  his  splendid  home  at  Delphi  the  laurel 
became  hut  a  common  shrub,  the  oracles  were  dumb  ; 
but  as  the  god's  return  gave  voice  to  caves  and  forests, 
so  did  Mount  Palatine  revive  at  the  presence  of  the 
new  deity  and  remembered  the  Caesars  who  for  so 
many  ages  had  dwelt  therein.  "  Truly  no  other  home 
suits  as  well  the  masters  of  the  world,  no  other  mount 
exalt  so  highly  the  imperial  power  or  more  dominion 
to  the  supreme  law,  turning  as  it  does  over  the 
forum  and  the  vanquished  rostra.  Behold  the  sacred 
palace  everywhere  environed  by  temples.  How  the 
gods  guard  it  round  !  Before  me  I  behold  Jove's  sanc- 
tuary, the  mighty  steeps  of  the  Tarpeian  rock,  sculp- 
tured porticoes,  statues  that  rise  toward  heaven,  holy 
buildings  whose  crowded  roofs  darken  the  sky.  I 
perceive  the  columns  studded  with  many  a  ship-beak 
in  iron  and  numberless  arches  charged  with  spoils. 
Respected  Prince,  dost  thou  not  recognize  thy  house- 
hold gods  ?  " 

Agnoscisque  tuos,  princeps  venerancle,  pénates.* 

There  was  more  than  imagination  or  empty  pomp  in 
such  verses.  They  read  a  bold  lesson  to  the  prince 
who  had  deserted  Rome  to  hide  himself  in  Ravenna, 
and  it  was  not  without  temerity  that  Claudian  called 
him  back  to  his  pagan  pénates,  to  Mount  Palatine  as  a 
place  still  defended  by  the  divine  sentinels  which  are 
standing  around. 

But  a  fine  sentiment  of  Roman  patriotism  pushed 
to  a  singular  degree  in  a  native  of  Alexandria  explains 

*  Claud,  de  Sext.  Cons.  Honor,  v.  39-53. 


PAGAN    LITERATUKE. — POETRY.  169 

and  gives  a  reason  for  the  poet's  unusual  audacity.  It 
was  a  proof  of  the  deep  feeling  of  unity  with  which 
Kome  had  infected  all  the  nations  under  her  sway. 
Claudian  had  digested  the  whole  of  Roman  antiquity, 
and  was  penetrated  with  the  spirit  of  Latin  heroism. 
He  filled  his  verse  with  the  names  of  the  Fahricii, 
Decii,  and  Scipios  ;  not  as  mere  verbiage  to  stock  the 
edifice  of  an  empty  poetry,  but  as  living  thoughts 
restoring,  if  but  for  a  moment,  the  faded  past.  Not 
Jupiter,  in  whom  he  only  half  believed,  nor  Ceres,  nor 
Proserpine,  but  Rome  was  the  true  divinity  of  Clau- 
dian ;  Rome  as  she  was  pictured  on  her  monuments 
and  seen  in  the  public  places  or  in  the  temples  which 
even  in  Asian  cities  had  been  dedicated  to  her  name. 
"  Rushing  forth  on  a  chariot,  followed  in  breathless 
course  by  her  two  outriders,  Terror  and  Impetuosity, 
with  helmeted  head  and  bare  shoulder,  in  her  hand  the 
sword  of  victory,  turned  now  against  Parthian,  now 
against  German."  Such  was  the  deity  of  his  dreams, 
and  in  admiration  of  her  stern  beauty  he  was  never 
weary. 

At  other  times,  quitting  his  rich  and  florid  mytho- 
logy, he  seized  the  very  idea  of  Rome  in  her  career  of 
conquest  and  legislation,  expressing  it  with  an  accuracy 
worthy  of  a  historian  or  a  laAvyer.  "  She  is  the  mother 
of  arms  and  of  law  ;  she  has  stretched  her  empire  over 
the  world,  and  given  to  law  her  earliest  cradle  ;  she 
alone  received  the  vanquished  to  her  bosom,  and  gave 
her  name  as  consolation  to  the  human  race,  treating  it 
not  as  its  queen,  but  its  mother.  She  made  citizens  of 
those  she  had  conquered,  and  bound  earth's  extremities 
by  a  chain  of  love.  By  her  peaceful  genius,  we  find  all 
of  us  our  country  under  foreign  sides,  and  change  our 

VOL.  I.  8 


170  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

dwelling  with  impunity.  Througli  ber  it  is  but  play  to 
visit  tbe  frozen  sbores  of  Tbule  and  penetrate  regions 
wbose  very  name  caused  our  fathers  horror.  Through 
ber  we  drink  at  will  of  the  Kliine  or  Orontes  ;  through 
ber  we  are  but  one  people,  and  her  empire  will  know 
no  end.  The  Sibyl  has  given  ber  promise,  Jupiter 
thunders  but  for  her,  and  Pallas  covers  her  with  ber 
whole  œgis."* 

I  have  treated  of  Claudian  in  detail,  as  being  the  next 
in  tbe  rank  of  poets  to  Lucan,  and  do  not  shrink  from 
putting  him  above  Statius  and  all  subsequent  poets,  on 
account  of  a  singular  brilliancy  of  imagery,  an  astonish- 
ing richness  of  metaphor,  and  a  warmth  of  tone  which 
often  called  forth  the  true  light  of  poetic  diction.  But 
I  cannot  veil  his  faults,  in  devoting  such  great  qualities 
to  the  service  of  a  religion  which  no  longer  inspired 
any  mind  ;  for  Paganism  had  its  time  of  inspiration  in 
days  when  it  was  sustained  by  a  kind  of  faith,  as  when 
Homer  pictured  a  Jupiter  the  movement  of  whose  eye- 
brow made  the  world  tremble,  with  such  deep  religious 
truth  that  the  poet  himself  seemed  awed  by  tbe  mighty 
image  be  had  just  evoked.  Virgil,  too,  in  less  degree, 
lighted  upon  some  measure  of  the  same  inspiration, 
when  be  called  us  to  assist  at  the  foundation  of  the 
Koman  Destiny,  at  that  assembly  of  gods  wherein 
it  was  decided  that  tbe  stones  of  the  Capitol  should 
never  be  displaced.  But  Claudian  scarcely  believed  in 
these  gods  ;  he  used  them  as  so  many  actors  to  pour 

■i-  Ha3C  est  in  gremium  victos  qure  sola  recepit, 
Humamiraque  genus  commimi  nomine  fovit, 
Matris  non  dominœ  ritu  ; 
IIu.jus  pacificis  debemus  logibus  omnes 
Quod  cuncti  gens  una  sumus. 

Claudian,  de  Consul.  Stiliclion.  lib.  ill.  13C-158. 


PAGAN    LITERATURE. — POETRY.  171 

forth  school  harangues,  and  only  brought  forward 
Jupiter,  Juno,  and  Pluto  to  treat  of  some  common- 
place about  glory  or  pardon,  farewell  or  despair.  It 
was  worse  when  he  disposed  them  as  so  many  slaves  in 
the  train  of  his  protectors  ;  made  them  march  behind 
the  chariot  of  Stilicho,  or  hurled  them  in  pursuit  of 
such  of  his  enemies  as  Rufinus  ;  and  in  this  all  the 
badness  and  ser\àlity  of  that  pagan  society,  whose 
disorders  w^e  have  glanced  at,  was  at  once  betrayed. 
Like  his  friends,  the  Roman  senators,  he  ofiered  vows 
in  secret  for  the  triumph  of  Arbogastes  or  Eugenius, 
whom  he  disowned  on  their  fall — finding,  when  one  had 
died  on  the  battle-field,  and  the  other  had,  like  Brutus 
at  Philippi,  fallen  on  his  own  sword,  nothing  but  poetic 
insults  for  their  memory.  When  Rufinus,  again  sur- 
rounded by  his  enemies,  was  torn  in  pieces,  his  head 
carried  one  way,  his  arms  another,  and  the  fragments 
of  his  body  a  third,  Claudiau  showed  a  savage  joy,  and 
could  not  gloat  sufficiently  over  the  blood  which  he  saw 
flow  '5\ith  the  same  pleasure  as  Diana  felt  when  her  dogs 
tore  Actaeon  limb  from  limb,  and  exclaimed,  "Happy 
was  the  hand  which  first  was  plunged  into  such  blood 
as  that."* 

Manldnd  could  scarcely  inspire  the  poets  of  this  time 
more  than  the  gods.  The  familiarity  of  Augustus,  the 
elegant  and  prudent  commerce  he  sustained  with  his 
poets,  was  efficient  to  encourage  the  muses  of  Virgil 
and  Horace  ;  he  wished  for  flattery,  but  the  more 
delicate  it  was,  the  more  did  it  please  him.  Far  dif- 
ferent was  the  courtiership  of  the  Lower  Empire  to 
which  our  poet  cringed.  Stilicho  was  a  Vandal,  and 
Eutropius    an   eunuch,  but   Claudian  was  their  hired 

*  In  Rufinum,  lib.  ii.  400. 


172  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

servant,  owing  tliem  verses  in  return  for  every  benefit 
they  conferred.  All  antiquity  then  was  sacrificed  to 
Stilicho  ;  lie  was  compared  to  the  Scipios,  who  had 
patronized  poetry,  but  he  was  raised  to  a  higher  place. 
Serena,  his  wife,  was  invited  to  give  her  auspices  to  the 
poet's  marriage,  and  in  an  invitatory  epistle  in  verse, 
by  which  he  announced  it  to  the  great  princess,  he 
reminded  her  that  Juno  assisted  at  those  of  Orj)heus, 
and  hints  that  the  queen  of  earth  will  not  suffer  herself 
to  be  excelled  in  generosity  by  the  queen  of  heaven.* 
In  such  phrases  he  addressed  a  Christian  guilty  of  the 
unpardonable  crimes  in  his  pagan  eyes  of  burning  the 
Sibylline  books,  and  of  snatching  from  the  goddess  in 
the  temple  of  Ceres  her  necklace,  whilst  repulsing  with 
a  kick  the  ancient  vestal  who  reproached  her  with  the 
sacrilege. 

Thus  all  the  poet's  Paganism  was  incapable  of  ex- 
tracting from  him  a  word  of  ill-will  towards  the  enemies 
of  his  religion,  and  he  includes  them  all  in  a  generous 
forgiveness.  This  leaning  towards  panegyric  was  a  sign 
of  a  degradation  of  morality  ;  not  only  did  it  take  from 
the  poet  all  moral  dignity,  but  was  inimical  to  the  spirit 
of  poetry.  The  panegyrist,  in  fact,  cannot  take  the 
truly  great  and  heroic  as  the  object  of  his  verse.  He 
must  praise  and  immortalize  everything — take  his  hero 
at  his  birth,  and  follow  him  through  his  childish 
games  ;  and  when  Honorius  could  not  lead  his  armies 
in  person,  find  a  reason  for  his  inaction  in  declaring 
the  boy  of  nine  to  be  busied  in  philosophic  study  at  the 


*  Seel  qimd  Thre'ico  Juno  placabilis  Orphei, 
Hoc  poteris  votis  esse,  Serena,  meis. 
Illius  expectat  famiilantia  sidera  nutum; 
Sub  pedibus  regitur  terra  fretumque  tuis. 


PAGAN    LITERATURE. — POETRY.  173 

moment  when  he  was  sought  for  that  he  might  be  made 
Augustus.     Such  is  the  law  of  panegyi-ic. 

The  publicity  with  which  these  compositions  were 
declaimed,  and  the  custom  of  public  readings  of  them, 
brought  the  poets  of  the  Decline  to  the  oblivion  which 
was  their  destiny.  It  has  been  ingeniously  shown  how 
this  custom,  unknown  to  the  time  of  Virgil — the  self- 
conceited  habit  introduced  by  Pollio,  and  encouraged 
later  by  Nero,  of  bringing  a  multitude  together  at  the 
recital  of  a  poem — contributed  profoundly  to  stifle 
genius  by  degrading  it  to  a  mere  literary  game  and 
pastime  for  men  of  culture.  When  a  whole  people  is 
addressed,  there  must  be  some  common  thoughts, 
which  must  be  eloquent  to  gain  hearers — simple  to 
gain  appreciation.  But  when  only  a  cloyed  and  cap- 
tious handful  of  so-called  fine  spirits,  who  boast  of 
never  admiring,  because  that  faculty  seems  redolent  of 
simplicity,  is  in  question,  then,  instead  of  mere  emo- 
tion, there  must  be  astonishment.  It  is  the  principle 
of  periods  of  decline  to  strain  every  nerve  to  astound 
by  the  deep  science  of  the  matter  and  the  excessive 
refinement  of  the  form.  As  to  the  former,  it  is  at  such 
times  that  we  meet  with  those  myth-loving  poets, 
astronomers,  geographers,  naturalists,  who  will  put 
into  their  Latin  verse  everything — whether  the  pheno- 
mena of  Aratus,  the  astronomy  of  Ptolemy,  or  descrip- 
tions of  the  earth  by  some  other  ancient — except  poetry 
itself.  As  to  the  latter,  everything  is  sacrificed  to 
minute  detail — to  culture,  refinement — to  the  budding 
of  a  happy  phrase,  hid  in  some  word  as  in  a  germ, 
which  is  developed,  enlarged,  watered,  cherished,  till 
at  last  it  displays  its  whole  foliage  to  some  delighted 
assembly. 


174  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

This  was  the  method  of  Claudian,  whereby  he 
struggled  to  show  himself  the  most  learned  man  of 
antiquity.  His  whole  art  lay  in  detaching  phrases,  in 
rounding  periods,  refining  and  polishing  the  points 
which  were  to  hold  the  memory  and  he  learnt  by  rote, 
for  whereas  few  knew  separate  scraps  of  the  "  J^neid" 
or  "  Iliad,"  of  which  the  whole  or  none  must  be  known, 
no  one  who  had  ever  heard  it  forgot  the  opening  of 
Claudian' s  poem  against  Eufinus  : — 

Sœpe  mihi  dubiam  traxit  sententia  mentem,    ' 
Curarent  superi  terras,  an  niillus  inesset 
Rector,  et  incerto  lluereut  mortalia  casu. 

I  pass  over  the  stirring  lines  which  follow,  in  which 
he  developes  at  length  the  Stoic  thesis,  and  which 
ended  in  these  verses,  to  which  he  was  bound  to  come 
at  any  price  : — 

Abstulit  hunc  primum  Rufiui  pœna  tumiiltum, 
Absolvitque  cleus. 

One  of  the  chief  secrets  of  the  literature  of  the 
Decline  was  this  cutting  the  line  and  arresting  the 
sentence  after  the  first  hemistich,  instead  of  finishing 
together  the  poetic  period  and  the  idea  ;  another  pro- 
cess to  excite  surprise  was  hit  upon,  the  finishing  the 
idea  before  the  line,  which  was  thought  an  achieve- 
ment. Herein  lay  all  Claudian's  defects.  He  was 
great  in  promises,  as  in  beginning  his  invective  against 
Rufinus  by  involdng  heaven  and  earth.  His  works 
were  full  of  that  flourish,  that  passion  for  erudition 
and  exaggeration  of  form,  as  well  as  the  hidden  un- 
belief suddenly  revealed  in  his  pretension  of  judging 
and  absolving  the  gods,  of  whose  justice  he  was  not 
sure.      The   faults  of  Claudian   himself,    and   of  the 


PAGAN   LITERATURE. — POETRY.  175 

Decline,  lay  iu  that  master-vice  of  scepticism  which 
had  strangled  faith,  and  with  it  inspiration.  We  might 
still  after  Claudian  treat  of  poets  animated  by  the 
breath  of  heathenism,  were  it  good  to  lengthen  the 
history  of  a  death-struggle. 

Some  fire  still  burned  in  the  breast  of  Rutilius 
Numantianus,  who  also  honoured  in  Rome  the  mistress 
of  law  and  arms,  the  uuiter  of  the  world  into  a  single 
faith.  Many  a  feature  might  be  added  to  our  sketch 
of  pagan  society  from  the  bold  heathenism  of  this  poet's 
writings.  Claudian  had  scarcely  ventured  on  one 
stealthy  epigram  against  Jacobus,  but  Rutilius,  on  his 
return  voyage  from  Rome  to  Marseilles,  having  passed 
the  island  of  Capraria,  which  he  found  tenanted  by 
monks,  shows  us  what  he  thought  of  these  men  of 
black  robe  and  stern  countenance,  whom  he  qualified 
as  hating  the  light  : — "Called  from  a  Greek  word  monks, 
as  wishing  to  live  without  witnesses  ;  flying  the  gifts  of 
fortune  to  avoid  the  blows,  making  themselves  wretched 
that  they  may  not  know  misery.  What  can  that  fury 
of  the  troubled  brain  be  which  carries  so  far  the  terror 
of  evil  as  not  to  undergo  what  is  good?"*  These 
words  of  Rutilius  were  to  be  repeated  later  by  the 
Provençal  poets,  by  the  calumnious  minstrels  of  the 
langue  cVoil  in  their  perpetual  strife  with  the  clergy, 

*  Processii  pelagi  jam  se  Capraria  tollit; 
Squalit  lucilugis  insula  plena  viris. 
I^Dsi  se  monachos  graio  cognomine  dicunt, 

Quox  soli  nullo  %ivere  teste  volunt. 
Munera  fortuutB  mctuunt  dum  daniua  verentur. 
Qiiisquam  sponte  miser,  ne  miser  esse  queat  ? 
Quœnam  perversi  rabies  tam  stnlta  cerebri, 
Dum  mala  formidas  liec  bona  posse  i)ati  ? 

RuTiL.  Itin.  439. 


176  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

and  so  to  be  handed  from  age  to  age,  to  our  fathers,  to 
ourselves,  who,  perhaps,  may  think  them  new. 

It  would  be  more  interesting  to  follow  this  pagan 
poetry  at  the  moment  in  which  it  fell  in  some  manner 
under  Christian  influence,  in  the  writings  of  Ausonius 
in  the  fourth  and  Sidonius  Apollinaris  in  the  fifth 
century.  The  latter  followed  his  master  Claudian  ; 
like  him  framing  epithalamia,  j)anegyrics,  and  sonnets 
on  pagan  models,  evoking  with  his  pen  Thetis  and 
Peleus,  Venus  and  Cupid,  and  composing  pieces  to  be 
learnt  by  heart.  In  one  of  these  he  shows  Rome 
appearing  helmetless,  dragging  painfully  her  lance  and 
buclder  in  the  assembly  of  the  gods,  and  complaining 
that  she,  the  former  mistress  of  the  world,  should  now 
be  under  the  domination  of  the  Caesars,  but  at  least, 
she  exclaimed,  if  I  must  serve,  let  heaven  send  me  a 
Trajan  !  Jupiter  accordingly  sent  her  Avitus,  who 
reigned  but  one  year,  and  amid  thorough  disorder,  but 
he  was  the  father-in-law  of  Sidonius.  The  poet  excused 
the  imperfection  of  his  verse  by  the  presence  of  the 
barbarians — those  men  of  six  feet  high,  with  hair  greased 
with  rancid  butter,  who  surrounded  him  importunately, 
stunned  him  with  rude  songs  wild  as  their  own  forests, 
and  took  from  him  the  liberty  of  mind  necessary 
to  inspiration.  Fortunatus  was  not  so  sensitive,  but 
though  he  lived  at  the  court  of  these  terrible  patrons, 
he  had  not  forgotten  his  Claudian.  In  leaving  Italy 
he  had  brought  carefully  under  his  mantle  the  roll  of 
his  master's  poetry,  had  studied  and  assimilated  it, 
and  when  the  great  event  of  a  marriage  between 
Sigebert  and  the  beautiful  Brunehaut  came  to  pass, 
was  happy  in  finding  an  occasion  for  his  recollections, 


PAGAN    LITERATURE. POETRY.  177 

in  bringing  Cupid  from  Cyprus  to  the  wedding,  to 
affiance  these  barbarians,  in  making  Love  sing  the 
praise  of  the  prince  and  Yenus  of  the  princess,  another 
Venus,  fairer  than  the  Nereids,  to  whom  the  river  gods 
were  happy  to  offer  their  nymphs. 

Ipsa  sua  subclimt  tibi  fluimna  nymphas. 

Venus  and  Amor  little  knew  that  the  lovely  Spaniard, 
the  3'oung  princess  of  the  barbarians,  the  world's 
delight,  would  one  day  be  dragged  by  the  hair  at  the 
tail  of  a  wild  charger,  amidst  the  yells  of  a  barbarian 
army.  As  the  pagan  divinities  and  Jupiter  himself  had 
lost  their  power  of  foretelling  such  a  future,  so  also  had 
the  epopee  left  these  undiscerning  deities  for  the  camp 
of  the  once  despised  barbarian;  and  was  to  be  found  then, 
as  ever,  to  her  shame,  on  the  side  of  the  victors.  As 
with  Greek  against  Trojan,  as  with  the  Roman  against 
the  Avorld,  so  now  with  the  barbarian  against  Rome.  It 
lurked  in  those  songs  of  the  people  which  told  of  the 
beautiful  Sigurd,  conqueror  of  the  dragon,  and  grouped 
around  his  myth  the  heroes  of  the  invasion  ;  in  those 
which  pictured  Attila,  the  world's  subduer,  dying  of 
hunger,  a  despairing  captive  in  the  depths  of  a  cavern, 
gold- surrounded  but  shut  in  by  iron  doors,  while  his 
enemy  bade  him  "  Surfeit  thyself  with  gold — take  thy 
fill  of  money."  It  was  with  Theodoric  hunting  wild 
beasts  in  the  forest,  and  then  having  become  Christian 
in  his  old  age,  appearing  on  earth  from  time  to  time,  in 
the  belief  of  the  Swabian  peasantry,  to  announce  to 
men  the  disasters  of  the  Empire.  Such  was  the  destiny 
of  the  poetry  which  Rome  had  thought  all  her  own. 

The  theatre  had  not  fallen  before  the  vices  of  the  de- 
generate Romans  of  the  Decline,  or  the  scandal  of  the 

8  -!■ 


178  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTUET. 

gladiatorial  and  mimetic  shows,  or  before  the  rivalry  from 
the  readings,  or  an  exhausted  treasury.  It  had  not  suc- 
cumbed to  the  decrees  of  Christian  emperors,  for  though 
they  had  at  first  expressly  suspended  theatrical  repre- 
sentations, a  law  of  Arcadius  in  399,  levelled  against 
certain  impurities  therein,  disclaimed  any  intention  of 
suppressing  them,  lest  the  people  should  be  dispirited. 
It  remained,  and  Claudian  reckoned  among  the  inaugu- 
rators  of  the  consulate  of  Mallius,  actors  of  the  sock 
and  of  the  buskin,  devoted  respectively  to  tragedy  and 
comedy  :  thus  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century  we  find  two 
contemporary  comedies  :  one  the  "  Game  of  the  Seven 
Sages,"  from  the  pen  of  Ausonius,  a  subject  dear  to  the 
Middle  Age,  and  often  repeated,  consisted  of  monologue 
in  which  each  of  the  seven  successively  enunciated  his 
wise  maxims  with  all  fit  dramatic  surroundings  ;  the 
other,  "  Querolus,"  was  also  a  work  of  the  fourth 
century,  and  has  been  brought  forward  in  the  skilful 
comments  of  M.  Magnin  as  a  strong  proof  of  the  con- 
tinuity of  theatrical  tradition. 

The  i^rologue  commences  by  asking  silence  and  a 
hearing  from  the  audience  for  a  barbarian  who  wished 
to  revive  the  learned  games  of  Greece  and  Latin  anti- 
quity, for  he  followed  the  steps  of  Plautus  in  imitating 
the  "  Aulularius."  The  first  who  entered  on  the  scene  was 
an  entirely  pagan  personage  in  the  shape  of  the  family 
Lar,  and  he  appeared,  as  will  be  seen,  before  a  society 
in  full  decay.  The  plot  was  as  follows  : — An  old  miser 
named  Euclion,  having  hidden  his  money  in  an  urn, 
filled  it  for  better  concealment  with  ashes,  and  inscribed 
upon  it  that  it  contained  the  remains  of  his  father  ;  he 
then  departed  with  light  heart  on  a  long  journey.  On 
the  way  he  died,  having  made  one  of  his  parasites  co-heir 


PAGAN    LITEKATURE. — POETRY.  179 

with  his  son,  and  charged  him  to  tell  the  latter  that  all 
the  gold  the  old  man  had  amassed  was  to  he  found  in  a 
certain  urn.  The  parasite  arrived  and,  fully  resolved  to 
reap  the  sole  profit  of  the  legacy,  passed  himself  off  as 
a  magician,  and  was  introduced  by  Querolus,  the  miser's 
son,  into  his  house.  There  he  was  left  alone,  and 
having  ransacked  the  premises  and  found  only  one  urn, 
the  inscription  of  which  told  him  that  it  held  ashes,  in 
a  rage  threw  it  out  of  window  :  it  broke  at  the  feet  of 
Querolus,  and  thus  betrayed  the  secret.  The  parasite 
was  imprudent  enough  to  claim  his  share,  and  brought 
forward  the  will,  but  Querolus  replied,  "Either  you  knew 
what  the  urn  held,  in  which  case  I  shall  treat  you  as  a 
thief,  or  you  did  not,  in  which  case  I  shall  have  you 
punished  as  a  violator  of  tombs."  And  so  the  comedy 
ended.  But  it  affords  another  page  to  add  to  those 
already  cited,  and  complete  wdiat  our  classic  education 
often  slurs  over — -the  reverse  side  of  that  splendid 
Roman  antiquity  ;  for  not  only  does  Querolus  lash  with 
his  satire  everything  public,  official,  and  solemn  in 
the  old  society,  and  expose  the  perfidy  and  cupidity 
of  the  pagan  priests  by  showing,  for  instance,  how 
they  denounced  all  the  offerings  and  other  impostures 
which  were  essential  to  the  system  of  w'orshij)  ;  not 
only  does  he  ridicule  the  whole  crew  of  divines,  augurs, 
and  astrologers  who  fattened  on  public  credulity,  but 
he  shows  us  the  honest  man  of  Paganism  one  to  be 
honoured  by  mortals  and  protected  by  the  gods, 

TheLar  set  forth  the  plot  in  these  terms  : — "lam," 
he  said,  "the  guardian  and  inhabitant  of  this  my 
assigned  house  ;  I  temper  Fate's  decrees  for  it  ;  if  any 
good  luck  is  promised  I  press  it  on,  if  bad,  I  soften 
the  blow.      I  rule  the  afiairs  of  this  Querolus,  who  is 


180  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

neither  agreeable  nor  the  reverse.  At  present  he  is  in 
want  of  nothing  ;  soon  we  shall  make  him  very  rich, 
and  he  will  deserve  it,  for  if  you  think  that  we  don't 
treat  worthy  people  according  to  their  worth  you  are 
mistaken." 

Knowing  Querolus'  had  temper,  he  promises  himself 
a  laugh  at  his  expense.  Soon  Querolus  enters,  and 
asks  why  the  bad  are  always  happy  and  the  good  un- 
fortunate, and  the  Lar  tells  them  he  will  explain  it. 
Querolus  declares  that  he  does  not  count  himself 
among  the  unhappy,  whereupon  he  puts  this  question 
to  him, — 

The  Lar.  "  Have  you  never  stolen,  Querolus  ?" 

Querolus.  "  Never  since  I  have  lost  the  habit  of  doing 
so.  When  I  was  young  I  admit  that  I  did  play  some 
young  man's  tricks." 

Lar.  "Why  then  give  up  such  a  laudable  crime? 
and  what  shall  we  say  as  to  lying  ?" 

Querolus.  "  Well,  who  does  tell  the  truth  ?  That 
little  sin  belongs  to  every  one.  Pass  on  to  the  next 
thing." 

Lar.  "Certainly,  as  there  is  no  harm  in  lying;  but 
how  about  adultery?" 

Querolus.   "  Oh;  but  that's  no  crime." 

Lar.  "  When  did  they  begin  to  permit  it,  then  ? 
Tell  me  how  often  you  have  sworn,  and  be  quick 
about  it." 

Querolus.  "All  in  good  time.  That's  a  thing  I've 
never  been  guilty  of." 

Lar.  "I  allow  for  a  thousand  perjuries.  Tell  me 
the  rest,  or  at  least  how  often  you  have  sworn  love  to 
people  you  hated." 

Querolns.    "  What  a  wretch  I  am  to  have  such  a 


PAGAN    LITERATURE. POETRY.  181 

pitiless  judge.  I  confess  I  have  often  sworn  and  given 
my  word  without  giving  my  faith." 

The  Lar,  content  with  this  confession,  tries  to  re- 
assure Querohis  by  proving  once  more  that  the  gods 
overlook  the  peccadilloes  of  good  fellows.  And  this,  be 
it  remarked,  shows  us  the  more  innocent  side  of  that 
society,  so  we  can  judge  of  the  dangers  which  must 
have  surrounded  it.  The  Lar,  ■s\ishing  to  reward 
Querolus  for  his  candour,  promises  to  grant  his  wishes 
but  to  warn  him  of  their  peril.  His  wish  was  the 
glory  of  battle  but  not  the  blows.  He  longed  for 
Titus's  cash-box  but  not  for  his  gout.  He  wanted  to  be 
a  decemvir,  but  not  to  pay  the  fee  for  the  honour  ;  to  be 
lastly  a  simple  citizen,  but  powerful  enough  to  rob  his 
neighbours  without  any  one  gainsaying  it.  To  which 
the  Lar  answers,  "It  is  not  influence,  but  sheer  rob- 
bery, that  you  are  hankering  for." 

Such  was  the  visible  and  glaring  disorder  ranged  at 
the  gates  of  that  wealthy  and  learned  society.  But  we 
must  examine  what  lay  beneath  and  within  it  amongst 
the  redoubtable  and  implacable  slave-caste.  One  of 
them  named  Pantomalus  appears  in  "  Querolus,"  and 
shows  us  of  what  sort  they  were,  and  in  what  their 
wishes  and  thoughts  consisted  in  the  fifth  century, 
"  It  is  acknowledged,"  he  says,  "  the  slave-masters  are 
bad,  but  I  have  found  none  worse  than  mine  ;  not  that 
he  is  actually  cruel,  but  so  exacting  and  cross.  If  there's 
any  theft  in  the  establishment  he  flies  out  as  if  it  was  a 
crime.  If  one  happens  to  throw  a  table,  chair,  or  bed 
on  the  fire,  see  how  he  scolds  ;  he  calls  it  hastiness.  He 
keeps  the  accounts  from  end  to  end  with  his  own  hands, 
and  if  anything  is  wrong  pretends  that  we  must  make 
it  up.     How  unjust  masters  are  !      They  find  us  taking 


182  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

our  nap  in  the  daytime,  the  secret  of  which  is  that  we 
are  up  all  night.  I  don't  know  what  nature  has  made 
better  than  the  night.  It  is  our  day.  Then  we  go  to 
the  baths  with  the  pretty  female  slaves.  That  is  free- 
dom in  life.  We  shut  our  masters  up  at  home,  and 
are  sure  of  their  being  out  of  the  way.  We  have  no 
jealousies  ;  there  is  but  one  family  among  slaves  ;  for 
us  it  is  one  long  festival,  wedding  games  and  baccha- 
nals, and  therefore  few  of  us  want  to  be  freed.  What 
freedman  could  stand  such  expense  or  be  sure  of  such 
impunity  ?  " 

We  see  then  that  family  life  at  this  time  was  menaced 
as  well  as  property  ;  deep-seated  perils  were  shaking  that 
world  with  its  thin  crust  of  marble  and  gold  ;  domestic 
danger  was  besieging  those  haughty  patricians  who 
owned  the  world,  in  the  very  days  which  they  passed  on 
the  benches  of  the  Circus  applauding  the  course  of  the 
chariot. 

One  of  two  things — either  the  poet  wished  to  crush 
the  slave  with  his  own  vices,  and  answer  the  complaint 
of  Christianity  by  showing  him  to  be  unworthy  of  en- 
franchisement, which  would  be  an  eternal  proof  of  the 
pitiless  cruelty  of  Paganism  towards  the  portion  of 
mankind  which  it  held  in  fetters,  or  to  show  the  peril 
society  was  running,  in  which  case  we  must  admire  the 
boldness  of  the  Fathers  in  reading,  whilst  tolerating 
slavery,  such  severe  lessons  on  the  equality  of  all  men 
before  God  ;  and  even  now  may  ask  ourselves  whether 
the  fears  of  those  are  well-founded  who  wish  to  relegate 
to  times  of  security  such  dangerous  truths,  as  if  the 
truths  of  the  Gospel  were  not  made  for  a  period  in 
which  suffering  and  sacrifice  alike  are  frequent. 

The  dramatic  shows  lastc/i  through  the  following  cen- 


PAGAN    LITERATURE. — POETRY.  183 

turies.  In  510  Theocloric  rebuilt  the  theatre  of  Mar- 
cellus  at  Rome,  and  the  Senate  undertook  the  expense 
of  providing  actors.  In  Gaul  Chilperic  repaired  the 
stage  at  Soissons,  and  Terence  was  acted  there  in  the 
seventh  and  eighth  centuries.  Of  this  we  have  proof 
in  a  fragment  which  has  been  preserved  to  us.  It 
opens  with  a  prologue,  in  which  Jerome,  the  manager 
of  the  theatre,  announces  to  the  audience  the  perform- 
ance of  a  comedy  by  Terence.  A  buffoon  {delusor) 
then  appears,  who  expresses  disgust  at  the  idea,  and 
wishes  them  to  pack  off  such  a  broken-down  poet. 
Terence  thereupon  enters  in  person,  and  encounters  the 
young  man  who  had  insulted  him,  whereupon  there  is 
a  dialogue  and  the  commencement  of  a  new  and  bar- 
barous comedy.  The  clown  replies  to  Terence,  "  I  am 
worth  more  than  you.  You  are  old,  I  am  young.  You 
are  only  a  dry  old  stick  ;  I  am  a  green  tree."  The  latter 
asks  where  his  fruit  is,  and  the  two  begin  to  use  strong 
language,  then  threats,  and  the  pageant  breaks  off  just 
as  they  are  coming  to  blows.* 

A  council  held  at  Rome  in  680  forbade  bishops  to 
attend  at  the  shows  of  mimes,  and  a  letter  of  Alcuin  a 
little  later  exhorts  certain  abbots,  priests  like  himself, 
to  abstain  from  theatrical  amusements.  In  the  eleventh 
century,  at  the  marriage  of  Beatrix,  mother  of  the 
Countess  Matilda,  mimes  were  still  playing  after  the 
old  method.  Later  Yitalis  of  Blois  composed  two 
comedies;  one  called  "  Geta,"  the  other  "Amphitryon." 
Thus  "Amphitryon"  was  played  for  the  men  of  the 
twelfth  century,  as  Molière  was  to  bring  it  again  under 
the  eyes  of  the  staid  and  learned  court  of  Louis  XIV. 
So  hard  was  it  to  subdue  that  lusty  spirit  of  antiquity, 
*  Bibliothèque  de  l'Ecole  des  Chartes,  première  series,  t.  i.  517. 


184  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

which  was  to  reappear  in  every  age,  not  only  in  the 
centuries  of  the  Revival,  but  in  those  of  purer  and 
severer  character,  which  seemed  farthest  removed  from 
the  taste  of  the  ancients. 

In  fact,  mythology  was  not,  as  has  been  supposed,  a 
posthumous  resurrection,  a  wonder  of  the  Revival,  an 
effort  to  bring  back  a  departed  element  into  literature. 
Tasso,  Camoens,  and  Milton  are  not  open  to  the  accusa- 
tion of  having  revived  the  pagan  muses  ;  it  was  rather 
Paganism  perpetuating  itself  in  literature,  as  in  religion 
by  superstition,  in  law  by  the  oppression  of  the  weak, 
by  slavery,  and  by  divorce  ;  and  as  astrologers  con- 
tinued the  science,  so  did  mythologists  continue  the 
literature,  of  heathendom. 

Mythology  had  entered  deep  into  the  manners  of  anti- 
quity. Rome,  disputed  for  by  Belisarius  and  Totila, 
still  kept  the  vessel  in  which  Ciesar  was  fabled  to  have 
touched  the  shores  of  Italy.  The  teeth  of  the  Eryman- 
thian  Boar  were  still  shown  at  Beneventum,  and  upon 
the  ornaments  borne  by  the  Emperor  at  Rome  on  days 
of  feasting  were  embroidered  the  Labyrinth  and  the 
Minotaur,  to  signify  that  his  thoughts  should  be  im- 
penetrable to  his  subjects.  In  the  mosaics  which 
beautify  the  churches  of  Ravenna  and  Venice  a  number 
of  subjects  borrowed  from  the  old  fables  are  to  be  found. 
Thus,  in  the  baptism  of  Christ,  the  Jordan  is  depicted 
as  an  old  man,  nude,  crowned  with  rushes,  pouring 
from  an  urn  the  waters  of  the  river.  The  earth  was 
represented  as  a  female,  sometimes  nude,  sometimes 
covered  with  flowers  ;  the  sea  under  the  features  of  a 
man  vomiting  forth  water.  The  Caroline  books  alluded 
to  these  abuses,  and  condemned  them  in  vain,  so  that 
under  Charles  the  Great  artists  employed  all  their  time 


PAGAN    LITERATURE. — POETRY.  185 

in  painting  Actœon,  Atys,  and  Bellerophon,  until 
mytbolog}'  triumphed  everywhere.  Later,  in  describing 
the  palaces  of  the  time  and  their  mosaics,  they  inform 
us  that  the  principal  group  represented  Amor  dis- 
charging his  arrows,  and  around  him  were  the  beautiful 
women  of  old  whom  he  had  struck.  At  Florence, 
during  festivals,  bands  of  youths  paraded  the  city,  the 
handsomest  at  their  head,  who  was  called  Love.  At 
marriages  during  the  Middle  Age  it  was  customary  to 
play  little  pastoral  dramas,  in  which  Cupid  appeared 
levelling  his  shafts  at  the  ladies  present.  The  first 
Spanish  dramatic  poem  by  Rodrigo  de  Cota  (1470)  was 
a  simple  dialogue  between  an  old  man  and  Love.  It 
cannot  be  supposed  that,  since  mythology  still  held  the 
manners  and  the  arts,  that  it  would  relax  its  hold  on 
poetry,  and  we  find  the  barbarians  comjiosing  works  of 
entirely  pagan  character,  and  revelling,  in  the  seventh 
and  eighth  centuries,  in  all  the  impurity  of  Catullus. 
The  fables  of  Ovid  were  translated  in  verse,  and  I  have 
seen  at  St.  Gall  a  complaint  of  Œdipus,  rhymed  like 
the  chants  of  the  Church,  and  so  noted  that  the  music 
was  joined  to  the  text,  which  proves  it  to  have  been  the 
work  of  a  man  who  laboured  for  the  public.  Mythology 
even  returned  in  the  works  which  came  from  the  pen  of 
men  of  heroic  courage  and  virtue,  as  St.  Columba  and 
St.  Boniface.  The  mythology  of  Dante's  Hell  has  been 
condemned  as  a  pedantic  contrivance  to  bring  science 
into  his  art,  fit  only  to  astonish  the  mind  ;  but  he  did 
but  follow  in  this  the  inspiration,  tastes,  and  prejudices 
of  the  men  of  his  time,  and,  far  from  being  pedantic, 
he  obeyed  the  feelings  of  a  people  which  still  believed 
in  such  things  as  the  hidden  virtue  of  the  .  statue  of 
Mars,  the  geese  of  the  Capitol,  and  the  aiiciUa.      The 


186  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUKY. 

ancient  deities  had  but  changed  their  form  and  become 
daemons  or  fallen  angels  ;  in  this  sense  the  poet  used 
them,  according  to  his  belief  in  them  ;  and  it  is  not  till 
we  come  to  his  Purgatory  and  Paradise  that  we  feel 
that  poetry  was  entering  its  true  destiny. 

We  must  traverse  the  Middle  Age,  the  Eevival,  the 
quarrels  of  the  Jansenists  and  Molinists,  of  ancients 
and  moderns,  to  find  the  end  of  mythology  ;  and  can  we 
say  even  now  that  we  have  found  it  ?  All  this  time 
had  to  elapse  that,  in  religion,  faith  might  rise  in 
triumph  above  the  creed,  in  law  the  spirit  of  equity 
might  conquer  the  arbitrary  and  changeful  letter,  that 
in  literature  thought  might  become  mistress  of  form 
and  independent  of  tradition. 

The  literature  of  the  fifth  century  then  preserved  the 
tradition  of  its  art,  as  treasure  in  a  vase  which  must 
ultimately  be  broken  ;  but  we  must  confess  that  the 
receptacle  was  sculptured  with  art,  and  its  fair  exterior 
was  calculated  to  excite  the  desire  of  many.  "When  it 
had  been  shattered,  and  its  contents  were  in  dispute, 
the  majority  thought  themselves  rich  in  having  picked 
up  a  morsel  of  the  painted  clay,  but  few  were  found 
to  grasp  the  treasure  which  had  been  hidden  within. 


187 


CHAPTER   VII. 


THE    LITERARY    TRADITION. 


We  have  seen  what  poetic  inspiration  could  effect  in 
the  fifth  century,  how  the  majesty  of  the  epopee  was 
sustained  as  by  a  last  effort  in  the  poems  of  Claudian, 
how  the  drama  remained  poj)ular,  and  how  the  comedy 
of  Plautus  lived  again  in  the  merry  scenes  of"  Querolus." 
The  tales  which  had  charmed  the  polished  imagination 
of  antiquity  did  not  weary  the  barbarian  world,  and  the 
fables  which  had  been  expelled  from  their  religious 
shrines  long  took  refuge  in  the  manners,  arts,  and 
poetry  of  the  Christianized  nations.  But  the  old  in- 
spiration was  burning  itself  out  day  by  day.  The 
ancient  poetry  had  been  essentially  religious  in  origin 
and  principle,  the  only  form  of  preaching  known  to 
Paganism  ;  it  was  the  accompaniment  of  the  mysteries, 
and  the  histories,  destined  afterwards  to  be  gathered 
up  into  the  epic  celebrations  of  god-born  heroes,  were 
originally  a  part  of  divine  worship.  Hymns  to  the 
immortals  had  been  the  earliest  form  of  poetry.  The 
theatre  had  only  opened  for  tragedy  on  the  feasts  of 
Bacchus,  and  as  a  form  of  public  worship.  The  destiny 
of  poetry  was  lowered  when  it  went  forth  from  the 
temples  to  be  given  to  the  people  in  the  works  of  Homer 
and  Hesiod,  to  enter  with  Yirgil  into  familiar  inter- 
course with  Augustus,  to  sit  as  a  courtier  at  the  feet  of 


188  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Nero,  and  lastly,  to  justify  all  misgivings  on  its  behalf, 
in  stooping  under  Claudian  to  the  domestic  life  of 
Stilicho  and  the  other  minions  of  Honorius.  Inspira- 
tion it  had  no  longer,  but  tradition  still  lived  tenaciously 
in  the  ancient  literature  ;  its  genius  had  departed,  but 
its  methods  survived.  Genius  is  but  a  lightning-flash, 
playing  on  the  human  mind,  but  in  such  vivid  beauty 
that  man  would  fain  fix  it  there  for  ever  ;  science  grasps 
by  one  intense  effort  the  passing  words,  holds  them  in 
meditation,  and  thence  unfolds  the  ideal  of  an  eternal 
beauty.  Thus  the  tradition  of  the  beautiful  is  preserved 
through  those  masterpieces  of  genius  which  became  the 
property  and  educating  principle  of  the  human  mind. 
No  century  can  be  so  unhappy  as  not  to  find  pleasure  and 
consolation  even  in  its  most  barren  period  from  some 
productions  of  literature's  golden  age.  We  must  sum 
up  the  services  and  show  the  conservative  spirit  and 
method  of  tradition,  and  now,  especially,  observe  the 
labours  whereby  it  was  perpetuated  in  antiquity,  and  by 
dint  of  which  it  passed  into  the  bosom  of  the  Church. 

The  traditions  of  literature  lived  through  the  old 
times,  as  indeed  ever,  principally  in  schools  and  by 
teaching.  What  was  the  Roman  method  of  teaching. 
Was  it — and  this,  like  all  great  questions,  is  a  perpetual 
one — carried  on  under  a  principle  of  authority  or  one  of 
liberty  ? 

In  the  earliest  period  of  Roman  history  teaching 
seems  to  have  been  free,  or  rather  it  fell  under  that 
omnipotent  domestic  authority  which  hitherto  the  legis- 
lature had  not  dared  to  touch.  The  father  at  his  family 
hearth  amidst  his  household  gods  was  a  type  of  Jupiter, 
and  his  rule  at  home  symbolized,  and  was  the  secret  in 
Roman  eyes,  of  that  universal  empire  destined  to  be 


THE    LITEKARY    TRADITION.  189 

borne  by  them  abroad  to  the  world's  extremity.  The 
law  did  uot  trouble  itself  to  know  what  masters  he 
seated  at  his  side,  or  to  what  schools  his  sous  were 
sent  ;  and  when  Crates  of  Mallos  opened  the  first  school 
of  grammar  and  Carneades  of  rhetoric,  fathers  pur- 
chased in  open  market  the  expensive  services  of  some 
of  these  philosophers  at  the  cost  of  about  four  hundred 
thousand  sesterces  a  year.  But  teaching  spread  so 
rapidly  that  in  Caesar's  time  no  less  than  twenty  public 
schools  were  to  be  counted,  and  the  number  of  rhetori- 
cians, the  dangerous  facility  of  their  art,  undertaking 
as  it  did  to  prove  the  j^ro  and  con.,  the  true  and  the 
false,  began  to  startle  the  old  Roman  gravity  and 
provoked  from  the  censors,  Cnaeus  Domitius  and 
Licinius  Crassus  the  following  decree:  "We  have 
learnt  that  certain  teachers,  calling  themselves  Latin 
rhetoricians,  have  introduced  a  new  kind  of  discipline. 
Our  ancestors  have  laid  down  what  it  pleased  them  that 
their  children  should  learn  and  what  schools  they 
should  frequent.  These  innovations,  as  contrary  to  the 
customs  of  our  fathers,  displease  us  and  do  not  appear 
to  us  proper.  Therefore  we  have  thought  it  necessary 
to  make  known  to  those  who  keep  and  those  who 
frequent  these  schools  that  they  are  displeasing  to  us." 
In  this  decree  appears  the  severe  censorship  of  old 
Rome,  but  it  was  powerless,  for  the  schools  of  the 
rhetoricians  were  soon  reopened  on  every  side.  Later 
Roman  policy  perceived  that  private  tuition  could  not 
be  stifled,  but  might  be  directed,  usefully  aided,  and 
enlightened  by  the  foundation  of  a  public  instruction. 
Caesar  was  the  first  to  grant  it  privileges,  and  whilst 
honouring  to  keep  it  within  bounds.  Vespasian  fixed 
the    salaries    of   the    public    professors  at    a    hundred 


190  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

thousand  sesterces,  and  the  imperial  schools  of  the 
Capitol,  destined  to  be  the  haunt  of  the  youth  of  the 
whole  world,  were  founded.  Adrian  built  the  Athe- 
naeum, and  granted  honourable  privileges  to  public 
instruction,  and  Alexander  Severus  founded  burses  (sti- 
pendia) for  poor  scholars  of  good  family.  Thus  the 
imperial  system  of  teaching  was  constituted,  its 
professoriate  became  a  magistracy,  a  literary  tradition 
was  infused  into  many  of  the  public  institutions  of 
Rome,  and  liberty  flourished  under  its  shade  ;  for  at  this 
epoch  we  find  from  the  letters  of  the  younger  Pliny 
families  associated  in  one  city,  under  the  auspices  of 
a  man  of  influence,  to  found  there  the  first  literary 
resort  open  to  the  children  of  the  town.  One  day  at 
Comum  the  young  son  of  one  of  the  inhabitants  came 
with  his  father  to  visit  Pliny  in  his  library.  "  Do  you 
study?  "  asked  Pliny.  "Yes,"  was  the  youth's  answer. 
'  '  Where  ?"  "At  Milan .  "  "  Why  not  here  ?  '  '  (The 
father)  "  There  are  no  masters."  "  And  why  ?  is  it  not 
your  interest,  as  fathers  of  families,  to  keep  your  children 
near  you.  What  can  be  more  consoling,  more  cheap, 
and  more  satisfactory  as  regards  their  morals  ?  Is  it 
so  difficult  to  get  funds  to  engage  masters  ?  I,  though 
childless,  am  ready,  for  love  to  this  city,  which  I  look 
on  as  daughter  or  a  mother,  to  undertake  a  third  of  the 
sum  required.  I  would  promise  the  whole  did  I  not 
think  it  would  be  dangerous,  as  it  is  in  many  places 
where  professors  are  paid  from  public  funds.  Those 
who  are  careless  of  the  money  of  others  keep  good 
watch  over  their  own,  and  will  always  take  care  that 
what  they  spend  shall  not  fall  into  unworthy  hands. 
Let  your  children,  educated  on  their  own  native  soil, 
learn  early  to  love  it,  and  may  you  be  able  to  attract 


THE    LITERAKY    TRADITION.  191 

professors  of  such  mark  that  one  day  the  neighbouring 
cities  may  send  their  children  to  your  schools."  * 
Nothing  can  he  more  modern  in  spirit,  more  judicious 
and  benevolent  than  this,  worthy  in  fact  of  times  much 
nearer  our  own  ;  but  still  antiquity  opened  no  slave- 
schools — no  such  idea  of  literary  benefits  for  high  and 
low  ever  entered  its  philosophy. 

To  come  to  the  Christian  emperors.  Constantino, 
instead  of  extinguishing  the  old  lights,  became  their 
protector,  and  as  a  benefactor  to  public  tuition  wrote  to 
the  poet  Optatianus,  "  I  wish  my  century  to  afford  an 
easy  access  to  eloquence,  and  render  a  friendly  testi- 
mony to  serious  studies."  Three  of  his  laws,  dated 
aun.  321,  326,  336,  re-enacted  the  old  imperial  consti- 
tutions, and  granted  to  public  professors  of  medicine, 
grammar,  and  literature  in  general,  exemption  from 
municipal  taxes,  military  service,  and  every  call  on 
property  and  residence  which  the  imperial  tax-system 
required  ;  extending  the  same  privileges  to  their  wives 
and  children,  that  many  might  be  called  to  liberal 
studies,  "  quo  facilius  liheralihus  stiidiis  multos  insti- 
tuant.'' t  The  law  also  guaranteed  them  against 
personal  injury,  punishing  by  a  fine  of  a  hundred 
thousand  pieces  of  gold  any  one  who  publicly  insulted 
them,  or  if  a  slave  was  the  offender,  by  beating  with 
rods  before  the  person  aggrieved,  that  the  latter  might 
enjoy  the  sight  of  the  penalty.!  A  decree  of  Gratian 
and  Valentinian  in  a.d.  76  took  the  more  solid  measure 
of  fixing  the  salary  of  all  professors  throughout  Gaul, 
desiring  that  in   each  metropolis  a  yearly  stipend  of 

*  Plin.  Jun.  lib.  iv.  12. 

f  Cod.  Theod.  lib.  xiii.  tit.  iii.  1.  3  ;  De  Medicis  et  Profes- 
soribns. 

1  Ibid.  lib.  i. 


192  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

twenty-eiglit  annones,  or  twenty-four  times  the  military 
allowance,  sliould  be  given  to  the  rhetoricians,  and 
twelve  to  the  Greek  and  Latin  grammarians.  At 
Treves  rhetoricians  received  thirty  annones,  Latin 
grammarians  twenty,  and  Greek  grammarians,  if  found 
able,  twelve  only.*  In  the  West  Greek  teaching  was 
sacrificed  to  the  Latin,  but  the  contrary  was  the  case 
in  the  East. 

Thus  were  established  the  privileges,  payment,  and 
right  of  public  instruction.    But  it  was  more  important 
to  think  of  the  pupils  than  the  masters,  and  the  police 
of    the    schools    were    settled    by    an    enactment    of 
Valentinian  dated  370.      "  Those  who  come  to  Rome  to 
study  must  be  furnished  with  a  certificate  of  consent 
from  the  magistrates  of  their   province.     They    must 
announce  their  intended   subject  of  study  on   arrival, 
and  make  known   their  lodging  to    the    office    of  the 
Censorship,   the    functionaries  of  which  must  strictly 
admonish  them  to    w^orthy    behaviour,   to  fear  a   bad 
name,  and  avoid  those  associations  which  are  the  first 
step  towards  crime  ;  consociationes  qiias  proximas  esse 
putamus  crim'nilbiis.     They  must  warn   them  against 
too  great  a  passion  for  ^Jublic  spectacles,  and  against  dis- 
orderly banquets.     They  shall  have  power  to  punish  the 
disobedient  by  scourging,  to  send  them  back  from  Rome 
to  their  province.     All  who  do  not  fall  under  censure 
may  pursue  their  studies  till  twenty  years  old,  then  the 
magistracy  must  insist  on  their  departure  and  provide 
for  it  in  spite  of  them.     A  report  must  be  sent  from 
the   offices   at   Rome   every  month   to   the   provincial 
magistrates,  and  a  yearly  memorandum  to  the  emperor, 
of  those  who  are  most  worthy  of  employment." 
*  Coil.  Thcod.  lib.  ii. 


THE    LITEEARY    TEADITION.  193 

As  the  tree  grew  and  its  foliage  became  thicker  there 
was  less  room  for  the  sun  to  reach  it,  and  so  private 
tuition  gradually  lost  its  freedom.  A  law  of  Julian,  in 
362,  considering  that  masters  ought  to  excel  in  morality 
and  in  eloquence,  ordained  that  postulants  for  the 
honours  of  teaching  must  submit  to  be  examined  by  a 
municipal  commission  chosen  from  the  curia,  whose 
judgment  was  then  to  be  ratified  by  the  prince.  This 
was  aimed  at  the  Christians,  to  exclude  from  the  chairs 
those  whom  he  hated  as  Galilœans,  but  the  decree  was 
to  recoil  one  day  on  its  authors.  In  425,  a  decree  of 
Theodosius  the  Younger  and  Valentiniau  III.  gave  per- 
mission to  private  professors  to  teach  in  families,  but 
forbade  their  keeping  public  schools,  to  debar  them 
from  that  road  to  fortune  and  even  dignities,  and  at 
the  same  time  interdicted  public  professors  from 
domestic  tuition  on  pain  of  losing  their  privileges.* 

We  have  to  consider,  then,  three  periods  in  Roman 
instruction.  At  first  an  absolute  liberty  for  private 
tuition,  but  no  ofiicial  teaching;  secondly,  private 
teaching  still  existing,  but  the  public  system  all-power- 
ful ;  and  during  the  golden  age  of  the  Empire,  its  longest 
and  brightest  period,  an  official  instruction  honoured 
and  sustained  by  state  aid,  side  by  side  with  a  general 
liberty  which  enabled  every  capable  man  to  give  proof 
of  his  learning  by  undertaking  the  education  of  his 
5'oung  fellow-citizens.  But  neither  the  measures  of 
Julian  nor  those  of  Theodosius  the  Younger  received 
their  full  accomplishment,  for  on  every  side  private 
schools  were  opened  which  caused  alarm  and  disquie- 
tude to  the  legislators.     The  year  425  approached  too 

=t=  Cod.  Theod.  1.  xiv.  tit.  xi.  1.  3  ;  de  professoribus  piiblicis 
Constautiiiopolitanis. 

VOL.  I.  9 


194  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

nearly  those  formidable  invasions  which  had  already 
carried  off  Spain,  and  were  destined  to  sever  Gaul  and 
all  the  provinces  in  turn  from  the  power  of  the  Koman 
Caesars.  The  laws  never  were  in  full  vigour,  and  as, 
under  the  continual  menace  of  invasion  and  before  the 
tide  of  barbarism,  the  impoverished  cities  were  little  able 
to  provide  the  large  charge  imposed  by  Antoninus  and 
renewed  by  Gratian,  public  teaching  had  to  disappear 
in  favour  of  the  private  schools.  Toulouse,  at  the  end 
of  the  sixth  century,  possessed  barely  thirty  gramma- 
rians, left  at  perfect  liberty  to  assemble  in  delibera- 
tion amongst  themselves,  but  hardly  calculated  to 
excite  the  jealousy  of  the  Merovingian  executive, 
since  the  object  of  their  gatherings  was  only  to  know 
whether  the  adjective  must  always  agree  with  its  sub- 
stantive, or  if  the  verb  had  always  a  frequentative  form, 
making  lego,  leglto,  as  legitimate  as  moneo,  monito. 

Instruction  thus  constituted  had  a  power  of  exten- 
sion to  the  very  ends  of  the  Empire.  We  have  marked 
its  establishment  at  Treves,  and  at  Xanten  on  the 
Rhine  an  altar  has  been  found  attesting  the  restoration 
of  a  school  in  that  northern  region  by  Marcus  Aurelius 
and  Lucius  Verus.  At  Autun,  Clermont,  Bordeaux, 
Poitiers,  Auch,  Toulouse,  and  Narbonne  flourished 
numberless  schools,  whose  professors  and  grammarians, 
Greek  and  Latin,  Ausonius  lauded  to  the  skies,  and 
even  Homer  found  in  one  of  them  a  new  Aristarchus  to 
throw  light  on  the  obscure  and  doubtful  passages. 
Britain  offered  the  same  spectacle,  since  the  conquering 
Agricola  introduced  eloquence  and  Roman  manners 
hand  in  hand,  in  the  belief  that,  by  throwing  the  toga 
over  its  haughty  islanders,  he  would  enervate  their  cou- 
rage and  disarm  their  opposition. 


THE    LITERARY    TRADITION.  195 

When  Britain  ceased  to  form  part  of  the  Empire, 
Roman  culture  survived  in  such  a  manner  that  the  tra- 
ditions of  the  "^neid"  were  confounded  with  the 
fabulous  tales  of  Cambria.  The  same  songs  celebrated 
the  fame  of  Merlin,  the  enchanter,  and  of  Brutus,  the 
founder  of  the  British  realm,  or  vaunted  the  greatness 
of  the  old  Latin  city  of  Caerleon,  with  its  baths  and 
palaces,  its  schools  and  its  forty  philosophers. 

The  same  movement  of  intellect  was  seen  in  Spain. 
In  the  days  of  the  republic  Sertorius  had  founded  a 
school  of  the  liberal  arts  at  Huesca,  and  later  a  legion 
of  brilliant  minds,  such  as  Quintilian,  Seneca,  and 
Lucan  came  out  of  that  province  to  Rome.  So  many 
poets  and  actors,  indeed,  did  it  produce  in  the  time  of 
Theodosius,  that,  unable  to  gain  a  livelihood  in  their 
own  country,  they  passed  the  Pyrenees  to  seek  their 
fortunes  beyond. 

Moreover,  when  all  intercourse  seemed  suspended 
between  the  central  seat  of  empire  and  the  provinces, 
the  learned  tradition  survived  through  the  most  uncon- 
genial time,  and  lightened  the  obscurity  of  the  darkest 
age.  The  imperial  schools  subsisted  to  the  end  of  the 
seventh  century,  not  only  in  Gaul  but  in  Italy,  Spain, 
and  on  every  point  of  the  old  Roman  world.  In  Italy, 
till  the  eleventh  century,  lay  teachers  pursued  their 
course  side  by  side  with  the  ecclesiastical  schools,  as  if 
to  unite  the  end  of  the  old  imperial  system  to  the  origin 
of  that  of  the  universities,  and  especially  the  university 
of  Bologna,  which,  in  spite  of  difference  from  one 
another,  and  from  the  old  schools  of  the  Empire,  per- 
petuated the  public  method  of  antiquity  through  a 
privileged  professoriate  and  an  universally  accessible 
system  of  instruction. 

9  * 


196  CIVILIZATION   IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

As  Alexander  Severus  hacl  founded  burses  for  poor 
scholars,  so  numberless  colleges  were  opened  during  the 
Middle  Age  for  students,  who  sat  on  straw  at  the  feet  of 
their  masters  to  receive  their  tuition.  On  one  side,  the 
spirit  of  the  universities  was  derived  from  antiquity, 
while  the  new  principle  brought  forth  in  the  schools 
and  the  laws  of  the  emperors  was  entirely  modern  and 
moulded  by  Christianity — then  a  power  in  the  world, 
and  straining  to  penetrate  its  institutions.  Antiquity 
loved  seience,  but  as  a  miser  loves  his  gold  ;  it  loved  it 
more  than  humanity,  and  feared  by  spreading  to  dis- 
honour it.  Christianity  loved  science  also  but  as 
it  said,  Venite  ad  me  omnes  ;  and  it  loved  mankind 
more.  It  honoured  j)ublic  eloquence,  and  encouraged 
it  by  the  canons  of  its  councils,  as  the  favoured  weapon 
which  had  brought  the  world  under  its  dominion,  and 
it  distributed  the  gift  with  profusion.  Therefore,  from 
the  time  of  Charles  the  Great,  every  province  opened 
schools  for  the  children  of  its  peasants  and  serfs,  and 
the  bishop  kept  a  higher  school,  supported  by  the  alms 
of  the  rich  proprietors  of  his  Church,  the  benches  of 
which  were  open  to  all.  Around  sprang  up  in  numbers 
colleges  and  hospices  for  needy  students  and  pilgrims 
from  afar.  Pious  legacies  for  these  purposes  were 
encouraged,  and  we  have  ten  or  twelve  enactments  of 
St,  Louis  relating  to  the  foundation  of  scholarships  and 
colleges.  Christendom's  greatest  minds,  like  Albert 
the  Great  and  St.  Bonaventura,  did  not  think  their 
vigils  wasted  in  multiplying  abstracts  of  Holy  Scripture 
for  poor  students,  hïblïa  2'>au'perum,  and  feared  not,  in 
opening  the  gates  of  knowledge  to  their  widest,  to 
encouragé  by  too  liberal  a  training  vocations  that  would 
be  useless  or  dangerous  to  society.     Christianity  had 


THE    LITERARY   TRADITION.  197 

no  such  scruple.  It  made  science  shine  as  its  God 
makes  the  sun  to  beam  upon  the  good  and  the  evil, 
lea\'ing  all  responsibility  to  those  who  abused  the  light, 
but  not  dreaming  of  extinguishing  it. 

What,  then,  was  the  nature  of  the  teaching  afforded 
by  those  schools  whose  origin,  number,  and  duration 
have  just  been  considered  ?  In  the  fifth  century  its 
spirit  was  still  profoundly  pagan,  and  proof  of  this  is 
given  in  writings  of  Macrobius,  the  learned  author  of 
a  "Commentary  on  Scipio's  Dream."  He  compiled, 
also,  under  the  title  of  "  Saturnales,"  a  sort  of  encyclo- 
paedia of  the  old  learning  of  antiquity,  as  it  had  been 
handed  down  in  literary  tradition,  and,  to  give  to  so 
dry  a  study  the  advantage  of  the  dialogues  introduced 
by  Cicero  into  Latin  literature,  supposed  a  group  of 
men  of  birth  and  letters,  such  as  Symmachus,  Fla- 
vianus,  Caecina  Albinus,  Avienus,  Eusebius  the  rheto- 
rician, and  Servius  the  grammarian,  to  have  assembled 
during  the  Saturnalia  at  the  house  of  Praetextatus,  to 
pass  the  time  in  social  festival  and  philosophical  dis- 
cussion. The  mornings  were  devoted  to  serious 
pursuits,  and  in  the  evening  a  more  playful  mood 
and  mirthful  sallies  enlivened  the  board.  This 
assembly  of  sages,  enjojing  the  repose  so  rare  in  the 
Rome  of  Theodosius,  agitated,  as  it  was,  by  incessant 
business  and  political  anxieties,  sought  their  natural 
recreation  in  the  sciences,  whose  elements  they  had 
acquired  in  their  youth,  and  show  us,  by  the  tenor 
of  the'ir  conversation,  what  constituted  the  education 
of  the  man  of  culture  at  the  end  of  the  fourth  century. 
The  discussion  was  opened  upon  the  origin  of  the  feast 
of  the  Saturnalia,  which  Praetextatus,  as  being  the  best 
versed  in  matters  religious,  was  asked  to  expound.    He 


198  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

did  not  "  seek  for  its  cause  in  the  hidden  nature  of  any 
deity,  but  drew  his  explanation  from  some  fabulous 
stories  or  the  philosopher's  comments  upon  the  same 
for  the  secret  causes  which  spring  from  the  pure  source 
of  truth  cannot  be  revealed  even  through  the  mysteries, 
and  even  he  who  can  raise  his  spirit  to  their  contem- 
plation must  keep  the  result  in  the  depths  of  his 
intelligence"* — and  herein  again  appeared  the  old 
jealousy  of  heathenism,  and  its  determination  of 
having  two  theologies,  as  it  had  two  kinds  of  science 
and  politics — one  theology  for  the  learned  patrician, 
another  for  the  ignorant  plebeian.  Prtetextatus  only 
gave  out  half  his  idea,  for  fear  of  betraying  the  secret 
of  the  mysteries,  but  he  went  very  far  in  his  avowal 
by  urging,  in  conclusion,  that  the  gods  of  different 
name  really  made  up  but  one  deity,  the  Sun,  to  whom, 
by  physical  and  allegorical  interpretation,  must  be 
referred  all  that  was  said  of  those  gods  who,  of  old, 
had  crowded  the  heights  of  Olympus  and  Parnassus.t 
In  this  attempt  to  serve  Paganism  he  destroyed  it,  and 
forgot,  in  giving  his  gods  a  refuge  in  the  Sun,  that 
Christians  saw,  in  his  deified  luminary,  the  first  of 
the  servants  of  the  Almighty,  Pmetextatus  would  have 
been  surprised  could  he  have  met  at  his  table  another 
writer  of  the  time,  who,  in  an  admirable  and  too 
little  known  essay,  gave  speech  to  the  constellation 
which  the  ancients  adored,  making  it  reprove  with 
energy  the  worship  whereby  it  was  insulted  by  setting 
up  it,  the  eternal  slave  of  God,  as  His  rival  and 
enemy.  So  deeply  was  the  theology  of  Prœtextatus, . 
the  essence  of  this  teaching,  tainted  by  a  Paganism 

*  Macrobius,  Saturnales,  lib.  i.  17. 
t   Ibid.  lib.  i.  1-7. 


THE    LITERARY    TRADITION.  199 

not  yet   transformed   and  purified  by  the  wisdom  of 
Alexandria. 

In  his  discourse  he  had  named  Virgil,  and  Evangelius 
the  rhetorician  present  to  act  as  critic  and  general 
opposer,  seized  the  occasion  of  saying  that  many 
intentions  had  been  assigned  to  the  poet  which  he  had 
never  entertained.*  S}Tnmachus  replied  by  an  eulogy 
upon  Virgil  ;  and  Prsetextatus  himself  undertook  his 
defence,  regarding  him  as  of  all  the  ancients  the  most 
versed  in  priestly  law  and  the  lore  of  religious  anti- 
quities, sho\\àng  how  Virgil  had  distinguished  the 
parts  of  the  sacred  rites,  had  never  confounded  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  gods  and  victims,  and  had  known  the 
worship  proper  to  deities  at  home  and  from  abroad.! 
Flavianus  claimed  further  for  him  an  intimate  ac- 
quaintance with  the  science  and  rules  of  auspices 
and  omens,  and  then  the  whole  literary  clique  pointed 
out  how  he  had  scattered  philosophic  theories  through- 
out his  poems,  the  knowledge  of  astronomy  displayed 
in  them,  what  he  borrowed  from  the  Greeks,  stealing 
the  gold  from  Homer  himself  with  consummate  art, 
sometimes  showing  and  at  others  hiding  it,  and  how 
he  had  profited  by  the  treasures  of  Ennius.t  Lastly, 
they  placed  him  above  Cicero,  as  having  known  all 
the  depths  of  pathos  and  exhausted  the  resources  of 
eloquence,  and  being  equally  great  as  an  orator  and  as 
a  poet.  In  such  grave  debates  the  mornings  of  these 
days  were  passed,  and  in  the  evenings  another  portion 
of  the  teaching  given  by  grammarians  and  rhetoricians 
was  reproduced.      Proof  of  this  lies  in  the  jokes  and 

*  Macrobius,  Saturnales,  lib.  i.  24. 
f  Ibid.Ub.  iii. 

:;:   Euseblus,    lib.  ,iv.  ;    Eustathius,    lib.    v.;    Furius    Albin. 
Severin,  Ub.  vi. 


200  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

wagers  the  feasters  proposed  to  each  other,  as  indicated 
by  Seneca  the  rhetorician.  In  the  schools  of  his 
time,  wherein  discussions  on  agrarian  law  or  imperial 
interest  were  no  longer  permitted,  we  find,  among 
questions  thought  fit  to  exercise  the  eloquence  of  the 
Roman  youth,  and  to  occupy  the  leisure  of  the  idle 
patricians,  such  an  one  as  this — "Which  is  the  first, 
the  egg  or  the  chicken  ?"  Was  the  world  the  creation 
of  chance  or  of  some  supreme  wisdom  ?  If  of  the 
latter,  it  needed  a  good  beginning,  and  would  a  logical 
nature  commence  with  that  of  the  hen  or  of  the  egg  ? 
We  may  leave  the  question  where  it  was  left  in  the 
dialogue  of  the  "  Saturnales,"*  for  it  is  enough  to 
give  an  idea  of  the  futility  of  that  teaching,  so  grave 
and  learned  in  pretension,  which  claimed  to  be  a  sum- 
mary of  the  relics  of  antiquity.  Yet  Macrobius  lived 
to  posterity,  and  was  to  be  found  in  a  work  by  Alard 
of  Cambray,  entitled  ''Extracts  of  Philosophy  and 
Morality,"  named  after  Solomon,  Cicero,  and  Virgil,  and 
was  popular  enough  to  be  quoted  by  a  poet,  not  in 
Latin  only,  but  in  the  vulgar  tongue. 

If  such  was  the  spirit  of  Eoman  instruction,  what 
were  the  sciences  expounded  in  detail  by  the  voice  of 
its  masters  ?  It  comprised  three  subjects,  grammar, 
eloquence,  and  law  ;  grammar  and  rhetoric  were  taught 
in  all  the  cities  of  Gaul,  as  at  Rome.  Law  had  special 
chairs,  though  there  was  no  official  instruction  on  it  in 
the  provinces  generally.  Under  Justinian,  its  schools 
were  placed  at  Rome,  Constantinople,  and  Berytus. 
As  the  science  of  law  was  to  be  studied  at  Rome,  so 
had  the  other  indispensable  accessories  to  a  thorough 
literary  education  been  professed  there,  since  Cicero, 
*  Saturn,  lib.  vii.  l-Ki. 


THE    LITERARY    TRADITION.  201 

like  Plato,  demanded  that  orators  should  be  made 
out  of  musicians  and  geometers,  thinking  that  with- 
out such  experiences  eloquence  would  consist  merely 
of  empty  declamation,  sallies  of  humour,  sonorous 
tirades,  instead  of  entering  the  depths  of  its  subject 
through  a  well-grounded  system  of  teaching;  and  so 
geometry,  dialectics,  astronomy,  and  music  formed 
part  of  the  galaxy  of  science  taught  to  the  youth  of 
Rome. 

Grammar,  which  formed  a  summary  of  the  whole, 
was  not  confined  to  the  elementary  art  of  spealdng  and 
thinking  correctly.  Suetonius  and  its  other  professors 
expressly  declared  that,  far  from  narrowing  its  sphere  to 
the  study  of  language,  it  comprised  a  criticism  of  all 
the  great  works  of  antiquity,  and  a  reading  and  inter- 
pretation of  its  poets,  its  function  being  not  merely  to 
read,  but  to  analyze  and  compare.  It  had  two  parts, 
philology  and  criticism.  In  France,  it  extended  into 
the  domain  of  rhetoric,  comprising  the  humanities, 
and  a  critical  reading  of  all  the  great  orators  and  poets 
of  antiquity. 

With  the  ancients,  philology  was  no  such  rudimentary 
science  as  might  be  supposed  in  hearing  Varro  and  the 
old  jurisconsults  derive  lucus  from  non  lucendo,  and 
testamentum  from  tcstatio  mentis.  We  have  no  idea, 
while  smiling  at  this,  of  the  learning  and  labour  neces- 
sary for  the  unravelling  of  the  chaos  of  the  old  lan- 
guages. One  section  derived  the  diverse  and  confused 
elements  of  which  Latin  was  formed  from  the  old 
national  idiom,  whilst  the  other  found  them  in  the 
Greek,  and  hence  arose  for  many  centuries  the  disputes 
of  the  rival  schools  of  Romanists  and  Hellenists. 
Another   problem    worked   out  Avith  different  results, 

9  t 


202  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

was  to  find  which  was  the  oldest  and  most  masterful 
principle  in  the  universe — authority  or  liberty,  the  finite 
or  the  infinite.  Those  who  believed  in  the  principle 
of  mobility  referred  everything  to  usage  gradually 
corrupting  words,  to  irregularity  and  anomaly,  while 
the  believers  in  the  infinite,  immovable,  and  eternal 
principle  proposed  to  subject  everything  to  a  fixed  law, 
which  subjugated  custom  to  reason,  and  ruled  through 
analogy  ;  and  thus  arose  two  other  sects,  the  anom- 
alists  and  analogists.  Thus  every  controversy  was 
carried  into  the  sphere  of  grammar,  in  which  all  the 
treasures  of  antiquity  were  reunited.  In  the  laborious 
agony  of  the  Latin  language,  the  origin  of  institutions 
whose  traces  had  long  been  lost  were  to  be  found,  and 
through  the  dry  and  ungrateful  study  of  etymology  the 
secrets  of  those  which  had  remained  a  sealed  book  in 
the  hands  of  the  jurisconsults  were  again  laid  bare. 
In  the  matter  of  criticism,  we  see  grammarians  early 
taking  in  hand  the  works  of  the  old  poets,  as  Njevius, 
Ennius,  and  Pacuvius,  which,  before  Lucretius  and 
Virgil  appeared  to  efi'ace  all  other  models,  had  been 
commented  on  and  criticised  in  a  thousand  ways.  The 
figure  of  Virgil,  long  surrounded  by  clouds,  stood  out 
in  such  radiant  beauty  that  posterity  took  it  for  that  of 
a  god,  as  which  the  poet  was  honoured  in  the  lararium 
of  Alexander  Severus  ;  his  name  was  placed  on  the 
calendar,  and  his  birthday,  the  eve  of  the  ides  of 
October,  marked  and  honoured  like  that  of  the  em- 
peror ;  while  the  Mantuan  women  told  of  his  mother's 
marvellous  dream,  of  the  budding  laurel,  and  would, 
when  near  childbirth,  bear  votive  offerings  to  their 
poet's  oratory.  His  fame  grew  from  day  to  day,  and 
upon  it  the  Roman   scholiasts  concentrated  all  their 


THE    LITERAKY    TRADITION.  203 

labour.  Donatus,  Servius,  Charisius,  Diomecl,  and 
many  others  might  be  instanced,  but  Servius  especially, 
preserved  through  the  Middle  Age  to  our  own  day, 
saw  in  Virgil  not  merely  a  poet,  but  an  orator,  phi- 
losopher, and  theologian,  finding  so  rich  and  various  a 
store  of  teaching  in  the  sixth  book  of  his  "  ^neid," 
that  he  did  not  wonder  that  whole  treatises  had  been 
composed  in  comment  upon  it. 

But  the  ancient  teaching,  and  especially  the  labours 
of  the  grammarians,  w^ere  concentrated  to  a  special 
aim,  of  which  their  prodigious  activity,  never  greater 
at  Kome  than  in  this  century,  was  the  proof.  It  seemed 
that  they  were  struggling  to  save,  verse  by  verse,  frag- 
ment by  fragment,  the  remnants  of  that  splendid 
language,  to  rescue  portions  of  so  many  authors  des- 
tined to  perish,  save  in  the  morsels  which  the  gram- 
marians had  preserved.  Donatus  and  Priscian  were 
the  two  most  eminent  of  the  time  ;  the  latter  was  so 
honoured  in  the  East  that  Theodosius  the  Younger 
copied,  with  his  own  hand,  the  eighteen  books  of  his 
"  Grammatical  Institutions."  The  former  had  St. 
Jerome  for  a  disciple,  and  was  so  pQi'severingly  com- 
mented upon  in  every  generation,  that  his  name  became 
a  synonyme  for  grammar  itself.  His  work  lived  as  the 
ground-plan  and  tvpe  of  all  modern  grammars,  and  by 
its  clearness  and  brevity  held  the  Middle  Age,  though 
it  was  as  the  bed  of  Procrustes  for  the  different  idioms 
which  adopted  it,  too  short  for  some,  too  long  for  others. 
Thus  the  "  Donatus  Provincialis,"  omitting  the  article 
which  existed  in  Provençal,  said  that  there  were  but 
eight  parts  of  speech,  and  in  the  French  adaptation, 
there  being  no  declensions  in  that  language,  it  was  some- 


204  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

what  bard  for  thé  author  to  find  place  for  all  the  nouns 
in  his  scheme. 

But  all  the  labours  spent  on  grammar  and  criticism 
were  summarized,  in  these  essential  points,  under  a 
taldng  form,  in  the  work  of  Martianus  Capella,  written 
at  Kome  about  470,  and  under  this  guise  the  treasures 
of  antiquity  were  to  traverse  with  some  safety  the 
stormy  period  in  which  what  was  less  valuable  was 
destined  to  perish.  The  author  was  an  old  African 
rhetorician,  plunged  in  all  the  contention  of  the  Bar, 
and  who,  in  his  own  words,  had  not  found  wealth  in 
pleading  before  the  proconsul.  He  composed,  for  the 
instruction  of  youth,  a  book  entitled  "  De  Nuptis  Mer- 
curii  et  Philologiœ,"  of  the  nuptials  of  Mercury,  the 
god  of  eloquence,  with  Philologia,  the  goddess  of 
speech,  a  vicious  title,  as  all  are  that  require  an  explana- 
tion. The  two  first  books  related,  in  prose  mingled 
with  verse  of  frequent  elegance,  how  Mercury,  seeing 
that  the  gods  had  yielded  all  things  to  the  laws  of  love, 
determined  to  act  in  like  manner.  He  went  to  consult 
Apollo,  who  points  out  to  him  in  oracle  a  virgin  for  a 
wife,  who  read  the  stars  by  her  glance,  and  in  spite  of 
his  lightnings  revealed  the  secrets  of  Jupiter.  The 
latter,  being  warned  of  it,  called  a  meeting  of  the  gods, 
to  announce  that  a  mortal  was  to  be  called  to  take  a 
place  in  their  midst,  and  demand  a  decree  to  naturalize 
in  heaven  the  virgin  of  earth.  But  Philologia,  from  the 
depths  of  her  retreat,  lost  nothing  of  what  passed  ;  and, 
knowing  some  noble  alliance  was  in  store  for  her,  com- 
bined, by  Pythagorean  processes  and  calculation,  the 
numerical  value  of  the  letters  of  her  name  with  those  of 
Mercury,  and  finding  a  perfect  harmony  between  them, 


THE    LITERARY    TRADITION.  205 

decided  on  submitting  to  fate.  Her  mother,  Phronesis, 
and  her  handmaids,  Periagia  and  Epimelia,  hastened  to 
complete  her  attire.  Scarcely  had  they  finished,  when 
the  Muses  appeared  to  sing  at  her  door,  and  Athanasia 
hurried  in  to  wish  her  joy  ;  but,  as  before  becoming 
immortal  all  that  was  perishable  must  be  put  off, 
the  goddess  of  immortality  placed  her  hand  on  the 
breast  of  the  virgin,  who  instantly  vomited  a  frightful 
quantity  of  books,  parchments,  letters,  hieroglyphics, 
figures  of  geometry,  and  even  notes  of  music  ;  no  one 
being  able  to  tell,  as  the  poet  says,  what  a  chaos 
escaped  from  the  half-opened  lips  of  Philologia  :  and 
then,  nothing  hindering  her  upward  flight,  she  was 
assumed  into  heaven.  Her  dowry  was  fixed,  and 
Apollo  appeared  with  the  seven  virgins  assigned  by 
Mercury  as  her  companions — Grammar,  Pihetoric, 
Dialectic,  Arithmetic,  Geometry,  Astronomy,  and 
Music — being  the  seven  liberal  arts  of  antiquity, 
which  allegorical  personages,  each  with  its  accom- 
panying attributes,  briefly  summed  up,  now  in  verse, 
now  in  prose,  the  group  of  sciences  committed  to  the 
share  of  each.  Geometry  was  not  understood  in  the 
modern  sense,  but  embraced  geogi-aphy  ;  music  was 
not  confined  to  music  proper,  but  it  united  the  art 
of  melody  with  that  of  composition,  the  secrets  of 
harmony  and  the  rules  of  versification. 

Such  was  this  encyclopaedia  of  antiquity,  which 
sought  to  reduce  all  sciences  to  the  arbitraiy  number 
of  seven  :  the  old  world  had  not  dreamed  of  straiten- 
ing its  wealth  to  so  narrow  a  compass,  that  task  was 
left  to  a  deeply  imperilled  society,  which,  like  a 
traveller,  clutched  its  treasure  lest  any  should  be  lost 
by  the  way.     The    mythological  machinery  in   which 


206  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

science  was  enveloped  saved  it  by  making  it  popular  ; 
for  we  know  the  barbarian  passion  for  the  mythical, 
and  how  readily  their  conquering  hordes  would  open 
their  ears  to  the  new  fables  related  to  them  by  the 
Romans,  to  the  graceful  myths  of  the  grammarians 
and  men  of  letters.  The  nuptials  of  Mercury  and 
Philologia  were  to  be  the  delight  of  Gauls  and  Germans, 
who  would  desire  them  to  be  embroidered  on  the 
tapestry  of  their  churches  and  the  saddles  of  their 
horses,  so  easily  would  they  have  been  gained  over  to 
the  worship  of  false  gods,  had  not  Providence  im- 
pelled them  to  other  temples  and  far  different  priests. 
The  legendary  scenery  in  which  Martianus  had  con- 
cealed the  graceless  subject  of  his  poem  was  especially 
calculated  to  charm  them  ;  and  he  once  also  formed  a 
natural  mnemonic,  whereby  the  meaning  he  had  wished 
to  convey  was  deeply  imprinted  on  their  minds.  His 
book  became  the  text  and  groundwork  of  elementary 
education  during  the  sixth  and  seventh  centuries,  was 
translated  into  German  in  the  eleventh  ;  and  in  the 
ninth,  thirteenth,  and  fourteenth,  was  commented  upon 
by  Scotus  Erigena,  Remy  of  Auxerre,  and  Alexander 
Nicasius.  It  gave,  in  one  word,  law  to  the  whole 
Christian  education  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  fenced 
whole  generations  of  intellects  around  with  the  limits 
of  the  triv'mm  and  quadrivium,  until  the  Revival 
came  to  burst  these  barriers  and  give  a  larger  sphere 
to  genius,  which  languished  in  such  confinement  and 
aspired  to  the  infinite.  In  going  over  the  catalogues  of 
the  monastic  libraries  of  the  time,  and  especially  those 
of  Bobbio  ;  of  York,  in  the  time  of  Alcuin  ;  and  of  St. 
Gall,  at  the  same  period,  we  find  therein,  next  to  the  chief 
Latin  poets — Virgil,  Horace,  and  Lucan — grammarians 


THE    LITERARY    TRADITION.  207 

and  commentators,  the  last  writers  of  antiquity, 
perhaps,  whom  we  should  count  worthy  of  the  pre- 
servation, which,  however,  our  ancestors  did  right  in 
affording  them. 

It  was  only  on  the  condition  of  bringing  the  heavy 
hammer  of  the  old  grammarians  to  bear  on  their  iron 
nature  that  Vandals,  Suevi,  Alani,  and  Sarmates  could 
digest  their  knowledge,  and  become  capable  of  study- 
ing a  language  so  little  made  at  first  sight  for  their  ears 
or  their  spirit.  It  was  only  by  constant  repetition  that 
their  lesson  was  retained.  Without  the  labours  of 
those  commentators  who  guarded  Virgil's  works  down 
to  their  last  verse,  syllable,  and  lacuna,  poetasters 
would  have  arisen,  undertaking  to  finish  his  incomplete 
rhythms.  It  needed  the  Argus-like  jealousy  of  these 
watchful  guardians  to  prevent  the  profane  from  actually 
laying  hands  upon  them,  and  so  justifying  the  suspi- 
cion of  Père  Hardouin  and  his  successors. 

Their  labours,  so  repulsive  at  first  sight,  were 
destined  to  mould  both  our  ancestors  and  ourselves. 
Impelled  to  the  lowest  depth,  it  was  to  become  the 
effort  whereby  genius  was  to  rise  again  under  that  ad- 
mirable law  of  the  Almighty  which  makes  it  the  prize 
of  labour. 

Long  ages  indeed,  and  many  a  generation,  passed 
away  in  their  course  before  the  spark  was  struck  out, 
to  fall  at  once  into  eclipse,  till  other  generations  came 
to  dash  in  their  turn  against  the  cruel  rock  of  labour, 
and  to  end  by  finding  another  stone  from  whence  the 
fire  of  ignition  must  spring.  The  schools  of  the  Middle 
Age  were  for  a  time  buried  as  in  the  earth  out  of  sight, 
but  the  day  came  when  a  blaze  of  light  arose  from  beneath 
their  blows,  where  Dante  and  Petrarch,  the  precursors 


208  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

and  prophets  of  the  Eevival,  hurried  to  kindle  their 
torches.  It  must  now  be  seen  how  this  century,  so 
pagan  in  its  memories,  so  filled  with  traditions  of 
mythology,  became  Christian,  and  after  what  repeated 
efforts  its  heathenism  was  transformed  and  thrown  into 
the  great  movement  which  bore  away  the  age  in  its 
current. 


209 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

HOW   LITERATURE    BECAME    CHRISTIAN. 

Whilst  poetical  inspiration  was  dying  out,  the  tradition 
of  literature  was  gaining  a  lasting  power,  under  the 
shelter  of  the  schools  which  the  imperial  policy  had 
endowed  and  multiplied,  by  making  a  magistracy  of 
their  professors,  and  organizing  science  as  an  institu- 
tion. The  Roman  law,  in  resj^ecting  the  liberty  of 
instruction,  gave  to  it  an  authority  that  the  culture  of 
minds  might  not  be  left  to  chance.  It  sustained  the 
right  of  a  father  to  send  his  son  to  the  schools  of  the 
mercenar}'  grammarians,  evidenced  by  their  purple 
hangings,  or  to  buy  a  professor  of  rhetoric  in  the  slave- 
market  ;  and  at  the  same  time  founded  a  public  system 
as  a  model  and  rule  for  the  others,  thereby  presemng 
from  destruction  the  wealth  of  human  intelligence,  and 
handing  it  down  under  û  severe  and  scrupulous  control. 
We  have  seen  with  what  ardour  that  tradition  was 
taken  up  and  cultivated  in  the  fifth  century  by  a  whole 
people  of  grammarians,  rhetoricians,  and  scholiasts, 
who  extracted  from  the  ancient  text-books  the  rules  of 
language  and  the  principles  of  every  branch  of  science, 
until  the  whole  cycle  of  human  knowledge  was  enclosed 
in  the  encyclopaedia  finished  at  Rome  in  470  by  Mar- 
tianus  Capella.  Whilst  the  Empire  was  tottering,  its 
literature   must  be   saved   at   any  cost,    and    though 


210  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Claudian,  Rutilius,  Sidonius  Apollinaris,  and  the  rest 
of  the  poets,  in  deed  or  in  name,  would  have  wondered 
had  they  been  told  that  posterity  would  prefer  to  them 
such  obscure  bookworms  and  word- splitters  as  Donatus, 
Servius,  and  Macrobius,  yet  posterity  was  wise  ;  for  in 
the  works  of  the  latter  they  found  the  ancient  language, 
the  essence  of  the  knowledge,  ideas,  and  experience  of 
the  old  world,  and  the  text  of  the  classics,  preserved 
with  scrupulous  accuracy,  transmitted  with  a  care  that 
had  not  let  a  page  perish  ;  and,  lastly  and  especially,  an 
example  of  labour  of  thorny  and  disinterested  study  on 
the  part  of  men  who  could  not  foresee  their  recompense. 
This  was  the  most  precious  fruit  gathered  from  it  by  a 
barbarian  age.  Horace  speaks  of  the  lyre  of  Orpheus 
civilizing  the  nations,  but  his  imagination  led  him 
astray.  Doubtless  the  Muses  have  their  share  in  the 
march  of  civilization,  and  the  nations  have  ever  loved  to 
see  poets  in  their  van,  especially  in  ages  of  difficulty  ; 
but  whereas  these  guides  have  often  failed,  toil  has  never 
been  lacking  to  a  people  struggling  for  improvement. 
The  period  we  are  traversing  is  eminently  one  of  labour, 
and  will  teach  us  the  difficulty  and  merit  of  the  task  of 
binding  to  the  study  of  mouldy  texts  on  the  benches  of 
the  crowded  school  the  descendants  of  the  barbarians 
whose  fathers  had  found  their  home  in  the  German 
forests;  men  who  had  to  be  civilized  by  a  process  full 
of  anxious  labour,  of  which  the  light  of  genius  was  to 
be  the  result  and  the  recompense.  The  traditions 
of  ancient  literature,  in  order  to  reach  the  Middle 
Age,  must  pass  through  the  ordeal  of  Christianity  ; 
the  School  must  desire  to  enter  the  Church,  the  Church 
to  receive  the  School.  It  was  no  easy  question  to  solve, 
but  a  problem  which  was  to  be  for  long  ages  the  tor- 


I 


HOW   LITEEATURE    BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  211 

ment  of  the  human  mind,  as  to  which  the  treaty  con- 
cluded seemed  never  to  be  definitive,  so  often  has  it  been 
reopened  and  recontested,  even  to  our  own  day  ;  it  was 
the  immortal  problem  of  the  connection  between  science 
and  faith,  the  alliance  of  the  Gospel  with  profane 
literature,  the  agreement  of  religion  with  philosophy — 
questions  which  are  proposed  anew  every  day  to  our- 
selves, and  were  the  special  difficulties  of  the  times  of 
which  we  are  treating. 

Moreover,  they  were  rendered  especially  obscure  and 
dangerous  in  the  fifth  century  by  the  profoundly  pagan 
character  of  the  schools.  We  know  all  that  the  Alexan- 
drian Syncretists  attempted  in  order  to  reunite  religion 
and  literature,  how  under  the  influence  of  its  doctrines 
poetry  became  a  means  of  popularizing  the  worship  of 
the  false  gods,  eloquence  a  proj^agandism,  and  philoso- 
phy a  theology  ;  that  whilst  Claudian  reproduced  in  verse 
the  history  of  the  Eape  of  Proserpine,  and  brought  the 
deities  of  Paganism  into  the  councils  of  Christian  princes, 
Acacius,  the  rhetorician,  was  triumphantly  telling 
Libanius  by  letter  that  he  had  j^reached  in  the  temple 
of  ^sculapius,  and  in  making  the  innovation  of  praising 
the  gods  in  a  prose  discourse,  pronounced  before  pagans, 
had  not  forgotten  to  insult  the  Christians,  the  very 
neighbourhood  of  whom  was  an  outrage  to  the  immor- 
tals. Jamblichus,  Maximus  of  Ephesus,  and  all  the 
later  disciples  of  Plotinus,  who  had  embraced  or  adopted 
these  doctrines,  and  plunged  in  all  the  errors  of  theo- 
logy, spent  their  time  in  invoking  gods  and  demons. 
The  last  bulwark  of  Paganism,  both  in  West  and  East, 
was  among  these  poets  and  philosophers,  and  Libanius, 
congratulating  himself  on  the  fact,  tells  us  that  the 
Greek  Septiuts  still  had  many  allies  at  Rome.      Au- 


212  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

sonius  also  bears  witness  to  this  fact,  and  among  the 
public  professors  of  Bordeaux  specifies  one  named 
Phnebitius,  priest  of  Balenus,  who  vaunted  his  descent 
from  the  caste  of  Druids.  So  essentially  pagan  was 
the  school,  that  it  was  a  question  to  what  point  a 
Christian  might  continue  to  teach  literature,  and  Ter- 
tullian  did  not  scruple  to  maintain  the  negative;  "  for," 
he  said,  '  '  they  must  of  necessity  teach  the  names  of  the 
gods,  their  genealogies  and  the  attributes  given  them 
by  mythology,  and  observe  the  pagan  festivals  and  their 
solemnities,  on  which  their  emoluments  depend.  The 
first  fee  paid  by  the  pupil  is  conserved  to  the  honour 
and  name  of  Minerva  ;  presents  are  given  in  the  name 
of  Janus  ;  if  the  œdiles  sacrifice,  it  is  called  a  ferial 
day  ;"*  and  concludes  by  defying  any  teacher  of  letters 
to  disengage  himself  from  these  bonds  of  idolatry.  But 
a  stronger  tie  was  found  in  the  charm  of  these  dis- 
credited fables,  which  had  raised  the  shoulders  of 
Cicero  and  embarrassed  Varro. 

In  the  presence  of  Christianity  they  seemed  to  revive  ; 
before  its  severe  doctrine,  so  filled  with  austerity  and 
mortification,  their  carnal  and  seductive  spirit  rose  again, 
to  throw  its  power  on  the  side  of  graces,  muses,  and 
pleasure.  Literature  had  to  be  shorn  of  their  fascina- 
tion before  it  could  become  Christian — to  resist  such 
tendencies  before  it  could  enter  the  pale  of  the  new 
truth,  which  commanded  an  abandonment  even  of  the 
charms  and  illusions  of  the  mind.  It  >vas  not  to  be 
wondered  at,  that  many  apostasies  came  to  pass  at  this 
time  among  men  of  learning  ;  and  it  was  the  influence 
of  the  Muses,  or  of  Homer  himself,  which  was  guilty 
of  that  of  Julian.  When  he  assumed  the  purple,  it  was 
*  Tcrtul.  Idolatria,  cap.  x. 


HOW   LITERATI-RE    BECA:ME    CHRISTIAN.  213 

no  marvel  that  men  of  letters  in  crowds  rushed  into  the 
temples  in  his  train.  The  terrible  edicts  put  forth  by 
Theodosius  against  apostasy  make  us  feel  how  deeply 
the  evil  had  corroded  Christendom.  Licentius,  pupil 
of  St.  Augustine,  a  youth  in  whom  he  had  placed  all 
his  sympathy,  who  had  passed  many  months  with  him 
in  the  elevated  and  familiar  intercourse  of  Cassiciacum, 
was  pursued  and  tormented,  though  a  Christian,  by  the 
dœmou  of  poetry,  and  escaped  to  compose  a  piece  upon 
Pyramus  and  Thisbe.  It  was  touching  in  the  extreme 
to  see  the  efforts  of  the  saint  on  his  behalf.  At  first 
he  bantered  Licentius,  and  tried  to  draw  him  from  the 
influence  of  his  Musé  ;  then,  thinking  advice  the  wiser 
course,  begged  him  to  continue  and  complete  his  fable, 
but,  when  he  had  represented  the  two  kings  dying  at 
each  other's  feet,  to  give  way  to  his  rapture,  and  extol 
the  conquering  love  which  leads  souls  to  the  light,  which 
gives  them  life,  and  never  suffers  it  to  die.  Advice  like 
this  seems  instinct  with  supreme  -oisdom,  but  it  was 
dangerous.  St.  Augustine  returned  into  Africa  ;  Licen- 
tius was  attracted  by  the  honours  and  pleasures  of 
Rome  ;  he  found  jovial  mirth  there,  and  was  soon  sur- 
rounded by  all  the  pagan  aristocracy.  He  dreamt  one 
night  that  the  gods  appeared  to  him,  and  promised,  if 
he  returned  to  their  allegiance,  that  he  should  become 
consul  and  sovereign  pontiff;  and  under  the  joint 
effects  of  the  dream,  the  festivals,  and  poetry,  he  em- 
braced Paganism. 

Such  was  the  irresolution  of  the  souls  of  the  poets, 
philosophers,  and  men  of  letters,  whose  eternal  curse 
was  a  kind  of  incorrigible  weakness,  a  softness  of 
heart  open  to  seduction,  an  activity  of  mind  which 
perceives   at    a    glance    strong  points    and    weak,   and 


214  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUKY. 

at  the  same  time  is  incapable  of  decision  and  of  choice, 
through  excess  of  knowledge  ;  for  fine  intellects  are 
often  served  by  feeble  wills,  and  we  may  find  in  all 
ages  the  irresolute  souls  who  have  not  the  courage  of 
faith. 

To  meet  this,  St.  Paulinus  wrote  to  Jovius,  to  engage 
him  on  the  side  of  Christianity,  and  to  conquer  his 
doubts.  "  You  breathe  the  perfume  of  all  the  poets, 
carry  in  your  breast  the  streams  of  eloquence  which 
have  flowed  from  the  orators,  bathe  in  the  fountains  of 
philosophy,  and  taste  the  honey  of  Attic  literature. 
Where  is  your  business,  when  you  read  and  read  again 
Demosthenes  or  Cicero,  Xenophon,  Plato,  Cato,  or 
Varro,  and  all  the  rest  whose  names  I  hardly  know, 
but  whose  works  you  know  by  heart.  You  are  always 
able  to  give  yourself  up  to  such  as  these  ;  but  when  the 
knowledge  of  Christ,  which  is  the  wisdom  of  God,  is  in 
question,  then  you  are  a  slave  to  business.  You  can 
find  time  to  be  a  philosopher,  but  not  to  be  a  Christian. 
Rather  change  your  thoughts,  carry  your  eloquence  into 
another  sphere  ;  you  need  not  abandon  your  philosophy, 
if  you  will  but  hallow  it  by  faith,  and  employ  it  wisely 
by  uniting  it  to  religion.  Become  the  philosopher  and 
poet  of  the  Almighty,  no  longer  eager  to  find,  but  to 
imitate  Him.  Show  your  knowledge  in  your  life  rather 
than  in  your  words,  and  produce  great  actions  rather 
than  wise  discourses."  Such  firm  and  manly  language 
was  necessary  for  that  efi'eminate  generation  of  men  of 
talent  and  sense,  but  whose  minds  were  crij)pled  by 
weakness,  and  had  to  be  dragged,  as  it  were,  under  the 
yoke  of  the  holy  and  fertile  austerities  of  the  Faith. 

But  these  efi'orts  were  blessed,  and  a  certain  number 
of  hardier  souls  had  early  the  courage  to  bury  them- 


HOW   LITEEATURE    BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  215 

selves  in  the  mysteries,  which  gave  a  recompense  to 
their  boldness.  Quadratus,  Athenagoras,  St.  Justin, 
pupils  of  the  most  brilliant  schools  of  Greek  phi- 
losophy, were  among  the  first  of  these  ;  and  the 
rhetoricians,  Tertullian,  Arnobius,  and  Lactatius,  fol- 
lowed them.  They  began,  on  entering  the  Church,  by 
shutting  their  schools,  and  abjuring  a  vocation  of 
which  they  were  ashamed,  as  irreconcilable  with  the 
literature  of  Christianity  ;  but  soon  the  further  sacri- 
fice was  demanded  of  them,  of  remaining  in  their  places, 
to  preserve  science  amidst  all  its  dangers,  in  spite  of 
the  requirements  and  newly-arisen  difficulties  of  their 
faith.  St.  Basil,  accordingly,  in  the  fourth  century, 
found  a  Christian  master  in  the  person  of  Preheresius. 
The  two  men  named  Apollinaris,  one  a  poet,  the  other 
a  rhetorician,  reproduced  the  form  of  the  epic  in  a 
versified  New  Testament,  and  the  Platonic  dialogue,  by 
adapting  it  to  that  method,  that  the  precious  treasure 
of  the  literary  tradition  might  be  preserved  ;  and 
Julian  showed  his  fear  of  these  Christian  masters  in 
that  masterpiece  of  hypocrisy  in  which  he  enacted  : 
"As  we  are  now,  thanks  to  the  gods,  enjopng  liberty, 
I  hold  it  absurd  to  lead  men  to  teach  the  works  of 
poets  whom  they  condemn  ;  for  do  not  Homer,  Hesiod, 
Demosthenes,  and  Virgil,  recognize  the  gods  as  authors 
of  their  knowledge  ?  Were  not  many  of  their  works  con- 
secrated to  Mercury  and  the  Muses  ?  If  these  masters 
think  them  to  have  been  in  error,  let  them  confine 
themselves  to  interpreting  Luke  and  Matthew  in  the 
churches  of  the  Galilœans."  This  persecution,  held  by 
Christianity  to  be  the  most  hateful  to  which  it  was  ever 
exposed,  attests  in  the  loud  protests  raised  against  it 
on  every  side  to  the  number  of  the  Christian  masters, 


216  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

some  of  whom  closed  their  schools,  while  others  main- 
tained them,  and  sought  to  elude  the  rigour  of  the  new 
enactment. 

But  the  time  came  when  such  a  resistance  was  use- 
less, when  everything  vielded  to  the  suhduing  power  of 
the  Church,  and  the  last  rhetoricians  were  obliged  to 
give  up  the  contest.  Witness  the  history  of  Victorinus  : 
"  He  was  an  African,  who  had  for  long  been  a  teacher 
of  rhetoric  at  Rome,  had  seen  the  noblest  senators 
among  his  pupils,  and  had  received  as  reward  of  merit 
a  statue  in  the  Forum  of  Trajan.  He  had  remained 
an  idolater  till  his  old  age,  but  was  at  last  converted. 
Having  read  Holj^  Scripture,  and  carefully  examined 
all  the  Christian  books,  he  said  in  secret  one  day 
to  a  Christian  friend  of  his,  named  Simplician,  '  Know 
that  I  am  a  Christian.'  '  I  cannot  believe  it,'  was  the 
answer,  'till  I  see  you  at  church.'  Victorinus  said, 
scornfully,  '  Do  walls  make  one  a  Christian  ?  '  They 
held  similar  conversations  from  time  to  time,  as  Vic- 
torinus feared  giving  offence  to  certain  influential  friends 
of  his  among  the  idolaters.  At  length,  strengthened 
by  reading,  he  began  to  fear  lest  Jesus  Christ  should 
deny  him  before  the  holy  angels  if  he  dared  not  confess 
Him  before  men  ;  so  he  sought  Simplician  at  a  time 
when  he  least  expected  him,  and  said,  'Let  us  go 
to  church,  for  I  wish  to  become  a  Christian.'  Sim- 
plician, in  a  transport  of  joy,  brought  him  there  ;  he 
was  admitted  as  catechumen,  and  shortly  after,  to  the 
great  surprise  of  Rome,  and  disgust  of  the  pagans, 
gave  in  his  name  for  baptism.  When  the  time  for 
his  profession,  made  at  Rome  from  an  elevated  place, 
so  as  to  be  in  sight  of  all  the  faithful,  approached,  the 
priests  offered  to  receive  it  privately,  as  was  the  case 


HOW   LITEKATURE    BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  217 

with  some  whom  shame  otherwise  might  overcome  ;  but 
he  preferred  pronouncing  it  in  public.  When  he  rose 
to  recite  the  Creed,  as  every  one  knew  him,  a  general 
murmur  went  round,  every  one  saying,  in  accents  of 
joy  to  his  neighbour,  Victorinus  !  Victorinus  !  Then  as 
the  desire  of  hearing  it  from  his  lips  caused  an  intense 
silence,  he  pronounced  the  symbol  in  a  firm  tone,  each 
of  the  congregation  following  him  from  the  heart  with 
joy  and  love."* 

Thus  the  School  entered  the  Church,  but  did  the 
Church  receive  it  with  open  doors,  or  did  a  new  diffi- 
culty arise  to  prevent  literature  from  reconciling  itself  to 
a  system  so  foreign  to  its  spirit?  It  would  seem,  at 
first  sight,  that  Christianity  ought  not  to  give  help  to 
the  alliance  of  learning  and  faith,  for  the  latter  pre- 
sents itself  as  a  dominant  principle,  ready  to  crush 
human  science.  Such  is  the  language  of  St.  Paul, 
glorying  in  the  fact  of  Christianity  being  reputed  as 
folly  by  the  Greeks,  delighting  that  in  its  turn  it  had 
confounded  the  haughty  wisdom  of  antiquity;  happy  in 
its  having  few  sages  of  its  own,  but  rather  choosing  the 
ignorant  and  the  insignificant  to  confute  by  their  aid 
the  learned  and  the  influential.  The  apostle  rightly 
charges  them  to  join  the  battle,  with  no  speeches 
learned  in  the  schools  of  eloquence  and  philosophy,  but 
tells  them,  with  Cicero,  that  though  philosophy  is  the 
ornament  of  human  minds,  no  rule  of  life  must  be  sought 
for  in  it,  but  rather  on  the  stronger  and  surer  ground 
of  ancient  custom,  mos  majoruni;  for  every  error  has  in 
its  turn  been  brought  forth  by  philosophy.  We  think 
the  Apostle  right  at  the  sight  of  philosophy  bringing 
Gnosticism    into    Christianity,  reducing  it  to  a  mere 

*  Fleiirj-,  torn.  iv.  lib.  xv.  p.  14. 
VOL.  I.  10 


218  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

mythology,  in  opposing  to  each  other  two  eternal  worlds 
of  matter  and  spirit,  renewing  all  the  errors  of  Pan- 
theism and  Oriental  Dualism.  Philosophy  held  a  frag- 
ment, hut  not  the  whole  of  Truth.  Christianity  also 
taught  that  the  Word  was  the  Light  which  lightened 
every  man  w^io  came  into  the  world,  and  that  the  reason 
which  had  so  divine  an  origin  could  not  be  trampled 
under  foot.  So  St.  Paul  did  not  fail  to  add  that  the 
philosophy  of  old  had  known  God,  that  His  works, 
manifested  to  man,  had  sufficed  to  show  him  his  Crea- 
tor, and  that  the  crime  of  its  experts  had  consisted 
not  in  ignoring,  hut  in  hiding  the  truth,  in  keeping  it 
from  sight,  lest  they  should  suffer  the  fate  of  Anaxa- 
goras  and  Socrates  ;  of  having  abandoned  by  their 
cowardly  retreat  the  truth  they  were  bound  to  serve. 
Hence  flowed  the  two  principles  maintained  by  St. 
Paul,  and  by  Christianity  after  him,  the  insufficiency 
of  reason  and  its  power,  the  danger  and  the  usefulness 
of  literature — principles  which  were  oiie  in  essence,  but 
which  had  separated  and  formed  the  guiding  influences 
of  two  different  schools. 

However,  the  agreement  wished  for  by  the  Apostle 
seemed  to  have  been  understood.  The  East,  enlight- 
ened by  the  luminaries  of  Alexandria,  Greece  en- 
chanted by  the  eloquence  with  which  Athens  was  still 
resounding,  those  speculative  races  occupied  with  the 
beautiful  and  the  true,  could  not  suffer  the  heritage  of 
so  many  masterpieces,  and  of  the  instruction  which 
they  had  received  from  their  ancestors,  to  be  snatched 
from  them.  Early  were  combined  efforts  made  to 
bring  together  in  a  lasting  peace  the  two  rivals,  faith 
and  knowledge  ;  and  this  was  the  motive  for  the  foun- 
dation of  the  catechetical  school  of  Alexandria,  which 


HOW   LITERATURE    BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  219 

could  trace  its  origin  almost  to  apostolic  times,  of 
which  one  of  the  first  known  masters  was  St.  Pantee- 
nus,  in  the  second  century.  At  the  same  time  great 
schools  of  theology  rose  at  Antioch,  Cœsarea,  Nisibis, 
and  Edessa,  the  work  of  which  was  to  throw  on  the 
darkness  of  ancient  philosophy  the  rays  of  Christianity, 
and  reciprocally  to  illustrate  the  mysteries  of  the  faith 
by  all  the  legitimate  light  of  human  reason.  Of  this 
gi-eat  scheme,  St.  Clement  of  Alexandria  gives  us  an 
example  in  his  three  works,  "An  Exhortation  to  the 
Greeks,"  "The  Pœdagogue,"  and  "The  Stromata." 
It  is  impossible  here  to  examine  these  admirable  trea- 
tises in  detail,  or  do  more  than  sketch  their  principal 
thoughts.  The  saint  wished  that  philosophy  and  pro- 
fane science  should  become  like  Hagar  to  Sara,  a 
handmaid  to  the  Faith,  but  that  the  servant  should  be 
treated  as  a  sister,  and  thus  expresses  it  : — "  No,  phi- 
losophy does  no  harm  to  the  Christian  life;  those  have 
slandered  it  who  represented  it  a  treacherous  and  im- 
moral attendant,  for  it  is  a  light,  an  image  of  the 
Truth,  a  gift  from  God  to  the  Greeks,  which,  far  from 
seducing  us  from  the  Faith  by  an  empty  fame,  gives  it 
another  bulwark,  and  becomes  its  sister  science,  afford- 
ing it  a  further  demonstration.  For  it  was  the  school- 
master of  the  Greeks,  as  the  Law  was  of  the  Hebrews, 
both  being  means  to  bring  them  unto  Christ."  * 

The  method  of  St.  Clement  was  also  that  of  Origen, 
whose  efforts  tended  to  compare  and  balance  the  philo- 
sophical doctrines  of  his  time,  to  bring  out,  not  their 
contradictions,  but  their  harmony,  as  fundamental 
verities  on  which  the  edifice  of  the  faith  might  rest. 
And  so  also  taught  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  Eusebius, 
*  Clem.  Ales.  Stromat.  lib.  i.  1,  5,  6. 


10 


* 


220  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUET. 

Synesius,  Nemesius,  and  all  those  Orientals  who  were 
still  held  spell-bound  by  the  Platonic  doctrine. 

But  it  is  in  the  works  of  St.  Basil  in  particular, 
the  friend  of  St.  Gregory  of  Nazianzum,  the  rival  of 
Julian,  the  pupil  of  the  school  of  Athens,  when  it  was 
just  newly  lighted  by  Christianity,  that  the  true  and 
wholesome  doctrines  on  the  share  of  the  Church  in  the 
profane  legacy  of  antiquity  were  to  be  found  ;  he  im- 
provised, and  afterwards  committed  to  writing,  for  the 
benefit  of  the  schools,  that  homily  on  the  right  use  of 
the  pagan  authors,  which,  beginning  by  establishing 
the  necessity  of  subordinating  everything  to  a  future 
life,  recognizes  promptly  that  the  future  itself  can  gain 
lustre  from  the  literature  which  adorns  the  present; 
for,  as  he  says  in  his  beautiful  language,  which  in  its 
comparisons  well  recalls  that  of  Plato  :  "As  dyers  dis- 
pose by  certain  preparations  the  tissue  which  is  des- 
tined for  the  dye,  and  then  steep  it  in  the  purple,  so,  in 
order  that  the  idea  of  good  may  be  traced  ineffaceably 
in  our  souls,  we  shall  first  initiate  them  in  the  outer 
knowledge,  and  then  will  listen  to  the  hallowed  teach- 
ing of  the  mysteries  ;  and  as  the  real  property  of  trees 
is  to  bear  fruit  in  their  season,  and  yet  they  clothe 
themselves  with  flowers  and  green  branches,  so  the 
holy  truth  is  the  fruit  of  the  soul,  and  yet  there  is 
,  some  grace  in  clothing  it  with  a  different  wisdom,  like 
the  foliage  which  covers  the  fruit,  and  lends  it  the 
charm  of  its  verdure."*  He  then  applies  these  maxims 
in  considering  how  much  of  the  old  learning  could  be 
received,  and  how  much  must  be  cast  away,  as  with 
the  poets  the  pictures  of  vice  and  of  the  nature  of  the 

*  St.  Basil,  Ad  adolescentes,  quomodo  possint  ex  Gentilium 
libris  fnictum  capae,  c.  iv. 


HOW    LITERATURE   BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  221 

false  gods,  the  voluptuous  sentiments  which  too  often 
formed  the  essence  of  the  work,  the  fierce  Paganism 
which  knew  neither  sister  nor  mother,  nor  any  loving 
influence  ;    at  the  same  time  separating  and   prizing 
whatever  might  tend  to  virtue  in  them.     Homer  was, 
according  to  him,  to  be  looked  upon  less  as  the  narrator 
of  the  fabulous  loves  of  the  gods,  than  as  the  learned 
oracle  who  covered  in  allegoric  form  the  wisest  doctrines 
of  antiquity,  and  showed,  under  Ulysses,  the  symbol  of 
worth  ;  for  what  could  be  grander  than  the  idea  of  that 
man  arriving  naked  on  the  Phaeacian  shore,  but   en- 
veloped as  in  a  cloak  by  his  courage,  virtue,  and  wisdom, 
so  that  the  young  princess,  daughter  of  Alcinous,  could 
not  look  upon  him  without  respect  ;  then  appearing  in 
their  popular  assembly  to  confound  it  by  his   heroic 
aspect,  all  battered,  as  it  was,  by  battle  and  shipwreck, 
so  that  no  Phaeacian  among  them  all  but  longed  to  be 
Ulysses,  even  in  his  piteous  plight  ?     Thus  it  pleased 
the  Christian  bishop  to  dive  into  the  most  mysterious 
depths   of   Homer's  thought,  to   show  the   sweetness 
which  it  contained,  and  to  run  through  the  other  poets 
of   old  time — Hesiod,    Theognis,    Euripides,  Plato — 
to  repeat  whatever  he  found  therein  that  could  elevate 
the  human  mind.     He  had  no  wish  to  deny  the  good 
in  pagan  virtues,  for  he  did  not  fear  them,  and  cited 
boldly  and  joyfully  the  examples  of  such  as  Aristides 
and  Themistocles,  for  he  knew  well  that  Christianity 
need  not  fear  the  comparison. 

In  this  way  the  Greek  Church  accepted  in  part  the 
literature  of  old,  as  both  a  preparation  for  Christianity, 
and  as  its  proof;  as  a  preparation,  because  philosophy 
had  acted  as  schoolmaster  to  the  heathen  world,  and 
it  was  fit,  according  to  St.  Basil,  to  steep  in  the  science 


222  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTUKY. 

of  antiquity  the  young  souls  that  aspired  to  become 
Christian,  that  they  might  then  be  imbued  with  the 
principle  of  the  Faith,  as  a  means  of  proof,  because 
Faith,  its  mistress,  would  act  herself  upon  the  intellect 
which  sought  the  light  that  it  had  perceived  afar  off 
in  the  bosom  of  the  Almighty.  And  the  schools  and 
their  science  came  forward  to  lend  their  aid  to  religion, 
and  surround  with  a  new  and  ever-enlarging  light  the 
elements  of  Christianity.  And  so  the  alliance  was 
completed.  It  has  been  thought  that  Clement  of 
Alexandria  did  but  enslave  philosophy,  and  that  the 
chart  of  the  human  mind  remained  torn  until  the  day 
when  Luther  brought  it  anew  out  of  the  convents  of 
Germany — a  strange  error,  for  at  the  very  hour  when 
Faith  seemed  to  bind  philosophy  in  her  fetters,  she  is 
seen,  if  closely  watched,  to  deliver  it  from  the  tyranny 
of  the  schools,  and  their  masters  from  that  word  avrbc 
i(py),  ipse  dixit,  the  last  argument  of  antiquity,  which 
had  been  repeated  from  one  generation  to  another  with- 
out any  making  the  necessary  effort  to  break  its  yoke. 
The  eclectism  which  Alexandria  named,  but  never 
grasped,  is  found  in  the  writings  of  the  Fathers. 
Truth  must  be  sought  not  in  one  school,  but  in  all; 
Aristotle  and  Plato  must  be  weighed  in  an  even 
balance.  The  eye  must  be  turned  from  the  fascinating 
page  of  error  ;  and  the  mind,  absolute  master  of  what 
lies  within  human  scope,  acknowledge  an  authority  in 
things  divine. 

And  whilst  faith  freed  the  human  mind  from  its  old 
tyrants,  it  snapped  also  the  old  bonds  of  everlasting 
doubt,  which  lay  at  the  bottom  of  those  schools  that 
were  for  ever  beginning  anew  their  search  after  God 
and  the  soul,  which  they  never  found.     It   was  the 


HOW   LITERATUEE    BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  223 

glory  of  Christianity  to  have  bidden  the  quest  to  cease; 
it  gave  itself  to  the  world,  rather  than  the  world  to  it, 
and,  forbidding  the  light  to  be  longer  withheld,  said  to 
it,  "  Christ  is  here,  go  no  further  in  pursuit  of  Him." 
By  taking  from  man  uncertainty,  the  Church  gave  him 
liberty,  and  broke  the  chain  which  was  hindering  him 
from  carrying  his  investigations  with  ambitious  ardour 
to  the  extreme  limits  of  the  finite  and  the  infinite. 

But  side  by  side  with  this  school,  which  was  to  last 
fourteen  centuries,  another,  less  in  number  and  in 
influence,  but  of  equal  vitality,  was  forming  itself. 
Struck  with  the  danger,  it  found  it  easier  to  fell  litera- 
ture than  to  prune  it  ;  finding  philosophy  dangerous, 
and  rightly  in  the  hands  of  the  Gnostics,  the  Epicu- 
reans, and  the  Stoics,  it  declared  it  impotent,  and 
sought  to  bring  man  to  faith  through  despair  of 
reason.  It  resolved  to  disgust  men  with  it  by  proving 
it  incapable  of  anything,  and  by  bringing  forward  as  a 
proof  of  this  its  perpetual  contradictions.  This  work 
was  undertaken  by  the  whole  line  of  apologists,  begin- 
ning among  the  Greeks  with  Hermias,  but  was  taken  up 
especially  among  the  Latins,  whose  spirit  had  always 
been  practical  rather  than  speculative,  to  whom  lite- 
rature had  always  been  somewhat  an  exotic,  and  whom 
Cicero  had  found  so  wedded  to  the  business  of  life, 
that  he  had  been  forced  to  apologize  for  his  philo- 
sophical labours,  and  to  evince,  or  at  least  to  feign,  a 
profound  contempt  for  Greek  subtlety.  In  the  train 
of  Hermias,  who  undertook  to  prove  the  contradictions 
of  the  various  schools  of  philosophy,  followed  Tertul- 
lian,  Arnobius,  and  Lactantius,  eager  to  repel  all  pos- 
sibility of  accord  between  religion  and  letters,  and 
disclaim  the   services  of  Dialectic  itself.     TertuUian 


224  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

contemptuously  pitied  Aristotle  as  architect  of  the  art 
of  construction  and  destruction,  of  that  logic  of  thorny 
argument  which  was  a  mere  nest  of  eternal  contro- 
versy, and  source  of  division  among  men  ;  which 
returned  upon  every  question  ceaselessly  as  if  discon- 
tented at  having  settled  it.  He  was  indignant  at 
the  efforts  of  some  of  his  contemporaries  to  bring 
about  an  union  between  philosophy  and  the  Faith. 
"  What  is  there  in  common,"  he  exclaimed,  "  between 
Athens  and  Jerusalem  ;  between  the  Academy  and  the 
Church  ;  between  Heretics  and  Christians  ?  Our 
doctrine  comes  from  the  Porch,  but  the  Porch  of 
Solomon,  and  teaches  us  to  seek  God  with  a  simple 
heart.  Let  those  who  wish  to  give  us  a  Stoic,  or 
Platonic,  or  logical  Christianity  come  to  terms  with 
it,  for  we  have  no  want  of  science  with  Christ,  nor 
of  study  with  the  Gospel,  and  when  we  believe  we 
search  no  more."  * 

This  proud,  self-confident  language  points  to  the 
fall  into  error,  its  fitting  punishment,  which  we  soon 
perceive  in  its  authors.  Lactantius  reproduced  the 
same  views  up  to  a  certain  point,  when  he  finally  modi- 
fied them  in  assigning  to  philosophy  a  subordinate  place 
in  his  scheme.  It  was  not  only  a  small  number  of 
Christian  orators  of  the  third,  fourth,  or  fifth  century 
who  spoke  thus  ;  they  had  disciples  and  imitators  in  all 
subsequent  ages  ;  in  the  Middle  Age,  among  the  schools 
of  Mysticism,  some  of  which  were  destined  to  go  to  the 
last  extremity  of  opposition  to  human  reason  ;  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  in  the  person  of  Huet,  who  de- 
voted his  labours  to  the  establishment  of  a  kind  of 
universal  scepticism  ;  and  in  the  person  of  the  great 
*  Tertull.  de  Prsescriptione  Hœreticorum,  cap.  viii. 


HOW   LITEKATUKE    BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  225 

Pascal  himself.  The  school  has  even  its  disciples 
among  ourselves.  It  has  never  closed  its  doors,  its 
adopted  thesis  has  never  lacked  supporters,  for  some 
have  ever  been  found  ready  to  throw  the  gauntlet  down 
to  reason,  and  to  attempt,  by  the  production  of  an  arti- 
ficial Pp'rhonism — a  system  of  organized  doubt — to 
overturn  the  labours  of  the  human  mind,  and  to  give 
faith  a  freer  and  wider  sphere. 

Against  these  men  are  ranged  the  general  tradition 
of  the  Church,  the  great  and  glorious  names  of 
Christendom,  and  especially  their  own  errors.  Their 
excesses  were  not  without  peril  in  the  midst  of  that 
doctrine  which  abhorred  extremes,  and  was  ever  charac- 
terized by  wisdom  and  moderation.  The  eagerness  to 
burn  what  had  been  once  adored,  without  distinguishing 
the  precious  metal  from  the  idol — perhaps  an  excusable 
exaggeration  in  newly-made  Christians — became  more 
perilous  in  the  reasonings  and  dogmatizings  of  these 
doctors,  as  showing  a  want  of  faith,  or  at  least  a  faith 
which  trembled  before  reason  and  the  ancient  literature, 
as  if  the  Church  had  an}i;hing  to  dread  in  philosophy, 
or  her  faith  was  destined  to  pale  like  a  torch  of  night 
before  the  light  of  day. 

And  this  weakness  betrayed  itself  by  remarkable 
lapses.  Tertullian  gave  up  science  for  ever  to  follow 
in  the  train  of  the  heretic  Montanus  and  the  two 
women  who  believed  in  him.  The  Mystics  of  the 
Middle  Age  were  travellers  on  the  road  which  led 
to  the  heretical  excesses  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and 
Pascal  himself  followed  one  of  the  tracks  of  error. 
We  must  remember  that,  however  stubborn  their  doc- 
trine might  be,  it  never  had  the  character  of  authority 
or  general  prevalence,  and  its  most  illustrious  follower 

10  i 


226  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

of  our  day  lias  finally  abjured  it,  and  redeemed  the 
rashness  of  trampling  reason  under  foot  by  his 
pregnant  saying,  that  "Plato  wrote  a  human  preface 
to  the  Gospel."* 

But  the  union  of  science  and  the  faith,  of  religion  and 
literature,  was  no  easy  question,  presented  as  it  was 
in  the  fifth  century  with  a  host  of  partisans  on  either 
side,  with  the  East  in  its  favour  and  the  West  in  oppo- 
sition ;  and  its  solution  was  entirely  doubtful  until  the 
West  decided  it  in  the  person  of  her  two  great  doctors, 
St.  Jerome  and  St.  Augustine.  Up  to  this  time,  whilst 
the  masters  of  the  West  had  abjured  their  literary 
heritage,  those  of  the  Greek  Church  had  inclined  to 
avail  themselves  of  their  right.  The  hesitation  of 
St.  Jerome  was  natural  before  the  formidable  duty  of 
deciding  under  the  eyes  of  the  whole  Church,  bent  upon 
the  question  in  anxious  attention.  Moreover,  he  was 
imbued  with  his  readings  of  grammarians,  rhetoricians, 
and  philosophers,  though  burning  with  faith.  Plato 
had  been  his  meditation,  the  declamation  of  oratorical 
controversies  after  the  school-methods  his  exercise. 
When  the  Spirit  of  God  came  upon  him  he  fled  into  the 
desert,  but  having  carried  his  library  with  him,  he  read 
Cicero  as  he  fasted,  and  devoured  Plautus  whilst  he 
bewailed  his  sins.  He  came  to  himself  and  took  up 
the  sacred  writings,  to  be  disgusted  at  their  unpolished 
style.  Towards  the  middle  of  one  Lent  he  fell  danger- 
ously ill,  and  was  transported  in  a  dream  to  the  foot  of 
the  throne  of  Jesus  Christ.  "  Who  art  thou?"  asked 
the  Saviour.  "I  am  a  Christian,"  answered  St. 
Jerome.  "  No,"  replied  Christ,  "  you  are  not  Chris- 
tian, but  Ciceronian."  Confounded  by  the  reproach,  the 
*  De  Maistre. 


HOW   LITERATURE    BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  227 

Saint  promised,  wdth  many  tears,  to  abandon  for  ever 
his  profane  studies.* 

It  was  a  grave  engagement,  and  he  seemed  to  contract 
it  anew  in  a  letter  written  soon  afterwards  to  Eustochius. 
About  the  same  time  he  sent  to  Pope  Damasus  an 
elaborate  commentary  on  the  parable  of  the  prodigal 
son,  in  which  he  denounced  the  priests  and  bishops 
who  knew  Virgil  by  heart,  who  used  to  recite  bucolic 
poems  and  love-songs,  and  occupied  their  leisure  in 
declaiming  entire  tragedies.  "  For  all,"  said  he, 
"  these  muses  of  poets,  this  eloquence  of  orators,  wis- 
dom of  philosophers,  are  but  dœmons'  delights  ;  truth 
doubtless  may  be  found  in  them,  but  it  must  be  sought 
with  prudence,  that  the  faithful  may  not  be  scandalized." 
These  harsh  maxims,  however,  were  written  in  the 
years  383,  384,  in  the  first  fervour  of  conversion  ;  the 
Saint  was  accusing  himself,  his  hard  blows  were  brought 
from  the  depths  of  his  remorse  to  punish  his  own 
faults,  but  wisdom  and  good  counsel  came  to  him  from 
the  solitude  of  his  desert  retreat,  to  change  his  tone. 
He  continued  his  writing,  Virgil  still  filled  the  fourth 
part  of  his  correspondence,  Plato  and  all  the  ancients 
threw  over  it  their  eloquence  in  turn,  for  his  fine  intel- 
lect could  not  separate  itself  from  the  influence  of 
the  old  literature,  which  overflowed  his  mind  and 
escaped  inevitably  into  his  writings.  Some  were 
scandalized  at  this,  and  Magnus,  a  rhetorician  of  Piome, 
who  was  somewhat  jealous  of  Jerome,  reproached  him 
with  having  filled  his  works  with  pagan  memories, 
of  having  profanely  stained  the  whiteness  of  the 
Church's  robe,  and  of  being  unable  to  write  a  page  or  a 
letter  to  a  woman  mthout  allusion  to  those  whom  he 

*  St.  Hieronjini.  epist.  xviii.  ad  Eustoch. 


228  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUKY. 

called  our  Cicero,  our  Horace,  and  our  Virgil.  But 
St.  Jerome  retorted,  "  that  liis  critic  could  never  have 
applied  such  a  reproach  to  him  had  he  known  the 
sacreduess  of  antiquity.  St.  Paul,  pleading  the  cause 
of  Christ  before  the  Areopagus,  had  not  scrupled  to  use 
the  inscription  on  a  pagan  altar  in  defence  of  the  faith, 
and  to  invoke  as  a  witness  the  poet  Aratus.  The 
austerity  of  his  doctrine  did  not  hinder  the  Apostle 
from  citing  Epimeuides  in  his  Epistle  to  Titus,*  and 
a  verse  from  Meuander  in  another  place.  It  was 
because  he  had  read  in  Deuteronomy  the  Lord's  per- 
mission to  the  Israelites  to  purify  their  captives,  and 
then  take  them  to  wife.  What  wonder,  then,  that  I, 
struck  by  the  science  of  the  age  in  the  beauty  of 
its  features,  and  the  grace  of  its  discourses,  should 
wish  to  transform  it  from  the  slave  it  is  now  into  an 
Israelite."! 

And  St.  Jerome  was  so  regardless  of  his  dream,  and 
the  promise  given  never  again  to  open  profane  books, 
that  he  made  his  monks  copy  the  "  Dialogues  of  Cicero," 
and  carried  a  copy  of  Plato  with  him  on  a  journey  to 
Jerusalem,  so  as  to  lose  no  time  on  the  road.  He  taught 
grammar  at  Bethlehem,  and  expounded  Virgil,  the  lyric 
and  comic  poets,  and  historians  to  children  confided 
to  him  for  training  in  the  fear  of  God,  and  did  not 
hesitate  to  plead  that  it  had  been  but  a  dream,  to  the 
accusations  of  Rufinus.  "  Rufinus,"  he  said,  "has 
accused  me  of  the  promise  I  made  in  a  dream,  and  has 
brought  proofs  of  my  perjury  from  my  writings.  But 
who  can  forget  the  days  of  his  infancy  ?  My  head  is  bald 
twice  over,  and  yet  in  sleep  I  think  I  see  myself  young 

*  Titus,  i.  12. 

f  St.  Hieron.  Ep.  Ixxxiii.  ad  Magmiin. 


HOW   LITERATURE   BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  229 

again,  with  long  hair  and  well-draped  toga,  declaiming 
before  the  rhetorician.  Must  I  drink  the  water  of 
Lethe  ?  I  should  give  this  answer,  if  there  was  any 
question  of  an  engagement  undertaken  in  the  fulness 
of  my  wakeful  senses.  But  I  send  him  who  reproaches 
me  with  a  dream  to  those  prophets  who  teach  that 
dreams  are  vain  and  deserve  no  faith."*  It  is  a  grave 
and  remarkable  fact  that  St.  Jerome  vn-ote  this  between 
A.D.  397  and  a.d,  402,  when  old  and  full  of  experience 
of  life  ;  when  he  had  played  his  part  and  taken  his 
side  advisedly  in  the  gi-eat  questions  in  debate  around 
him  ;  when  he  had  gained  a  gi-eater  wisdom,  and  freed 
from  the  excesses  of  his  youth  had  learnt  in  the  moral 
order  to  pardon  much  to  human  wills,  and  to  be  tolerant 
of  the  intellect  of  mankind. 

What  was  the  doctrine  of  St.  Augustine  on  the  subject, 
the  result  of  the  mental  labour  of  which  that  gi-eat 
soul  gave  us  the  sight,  and  by  which,  in  greater 
measure  than  St.  Jerome,  he  was  to  decide  the  vexed 
question  of  the  whole  of  Christian  antiquity  ?  We  need 
not  speak  of  his  early  passion  for  ancient  literature, 
the  tears  which  Dido's  fate  caused  him,  or  the  ardour 
with  which  he  devoured  the  "  Hortensius  "  of  Cicero, 
and  later,  the  works  of  the  Neoplatonists,  but  stop  at 
the  period  when,  upon  his  conversion,  he  abjured  all  his 
errors,  and  follow  him  into  his  retreat  at  Cassiciacum, 
where  he  passed  many  months  of  peace  with  his  friends 
Trygetius  and  Licentius,  devoting  the  mornings  to  dis- 
cussion of  grave  questions  of  philosophy,  commenting 
on  Cicero,  and  reading  every  day  the  half  of  one  of 
Virgil's  cantos.  He  was  in  no  haste  to  abjure  all  that 
he  had  once  admired,  and  ignored  the  declamations  of 
*  St.  Hieron.  contra  Rufinum,  lib.  i.  30. 


230  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Tertullian,  Arnobms,Lactantius,  and  all  those  other  men 
whom  the  Church  has  never  counted  in  the  number  of 
her  saints.  In  the  "  Confessions,"  that  deep  outpouring 
of  a  devout  soul,  he  recalls  the  time  when  the  Neo- 
platonic  books  first  fell  into  his  hands:  "  Thou  didst 
send  me,  Lord,  several  works  of  the  Platonists,  translated 
into  Greek  and  Latin,  and  in  them  I  read,  though  in 
other  terms,  that  in  the  beginning  was  the  Word,  and 
the  Word  was  in  God,  and  the  Word  was  God,  and  that 
It  was  the  true  light  which  enlightened  every  man 
that  came  into  this  world.  But  that  He  came  to  His 
own,  and  that  they  received  Him  not,  and  that  to  those 
who  did  receive  Him  He  gave  power  to  be  made 
children  of  God,  that  the  Word  was  made  Flesh,  and 

dwelt  among  us,  I  read  not  in  those  books  ; that 

He  existed  before  time,  beyond  time,  in  an  immutable 
eternity,  that  to  be  happy,  souls  must  partake  of  His 
fulness,  I  found  indeed  in  the  writings  of  those 
Platonists  ;  but  I  did  not  find  that  He  died  in  time 
for  the  wicked.  Thou  hast  hidden  these  things  from 
the  wise,  my  God,  and  hast  revealed  them  to  babes, 
that  all  who  suffer  and  are  heavy  laden  may  come  to 
Him  for  comfort."* 

This  was  the  measure  and  the  secret  of  the  question 
which  for  so  many  centuries  has  tormented  the  world. 
Philosophy  was  not  without  power  to  lead  men  to  the 
feet  of  God,  but  Reason  could  not  bring  the  human 
mind  to  comprehend  the  God-man,  or  the  charity  and 
mystery  of  His  infinite  love.  St.  Augustine  was  con- 
tinually repeating  this  in  the  Church  at  his  first 
conversion,  when  writing  his  "  Confessions,"  and  when 
he  had  become  the  great  doctor  of  the  Western  Church. 

*  St.  August,  Confess,  lib.  vii.  cap.  ix. 


HOW   LITEEATUKE   BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  231 

He  spoke  with  respect  of  the  Platonists  on  every  page 
of  his  "  City  of  God,"  and  finished  it  with  this  fine 
saying  :  "  I  could  have  pardoned  the  pagans  if,  instead 
of  raising  a  temple  to  Cybele,  they  had  reared  a  shrine 
to  Plato  wherein  his  books  should  be  read." 

The  door,  thus  opened  to  Philosophy,  could  not  be 
closed  to  the  rest  of  human  learning  ;  and  thus,  in  his 
work  "  On  Order,"  in  tracing  the  plan  of  Christian  edu- 
cation, St.  Augustine  followed  the  changeless  law  of  God, 
written  by  Him  on  the  hearts  of  the  wise,  and  divided 
it  into  two  parts,  discipline  of  life,  and  discipline  of 
knowledge  ;  the  first  proceeding  from  a  principle  of 
authority,  the  second  from  that  of  reason. 

"Keason  is  an  effort  of  the  soul,  capable  of  bringing 
man  to  a  knowledge  of  himself,  and  even  of  God, 
were  he  not  arrested  by  the  preoccupation  of  the  senses. 
It  seeks  intercourse  with  men  in  whom  reciprocally  it 
resides,  from  whence  springs  Literature,  and  Grammar, 
which  embraces  whatever  the  former  hands  down 
through  the  memory  of  man,  and  is  in  consequence 
history.  Reason  then  bending  to  its  work,  and  taking 
account  of  the  definitions,  rules,  and  divisions  pro- 
duced, forms  Dialectic  ;  and  to  it,  as  it  is  not  in  itself 
sufficient  for  persuasion,  adds  lihetoric.  Having  com- 
passed man,  it  goes  in  search  of  God,  or  of  steps  by 
which  to  reach  Him  ;  and  thence  comes  the  idea  of 
Beauty,  which,  grasped  by  hearing,  sound,  rhythm,  and 
number,  forms  Music,  and  by  sight,  symbol,  dimen- 
sions, and  numbers  becomes,  again.  Geometry  and 
Astronomy.  But  what  is  seen  by  the  eye  is  incom- 
parable to  the  harmony  discovered  to  the  Soul.  In  this 
course  of  study  everything  is  reduced  to  number,  of 
which  the  shadow  rather  than  the  reality  is  perceived  ; 


232  CIVILIZATION   IN  FIFTH   CENTURY. 

and  thereupon  Keason  takes  courage,  and  begins  to 
suspect  that  a  number  must  exist  of  capacity  to 
measure  all  the  rest.  From  its  efforts  in  this  direction 
Philosophy  is  born,  and  with  it  the  two  questions  of 
the  Soul  and  God,  our  nature  and  our  origin,  one 
rendering  us  worthy  of  happiness,  the  other  giving 
bliss  itself."  Such  was  his  order  of  study,  a  system  of 
wisdom  by  which  the  soul  was  to  be  rendered  worthy 
of  knowing  the  sovereign  order  of  things,  of  distin- 
guishing the  two  worlds,  and  rising  in  thought  to  the 
Father  of  the  Universe. 

Moreover,  it  is  remarkable  that  this  scheme  was 
nearly  the  same  as  that  of  the  ancients,  but  renewed 
and  regenerated  by  the  loftier  spirit  of  Christianity. 
It  contained  their  entire  encyclopaedia  of  the  seven 
arts,  modified  by  the  conjunction  of  arithmetic  with 
geometry,  and  giving  to  philosophy,  which  in  the 
system  of  Martianus  Capella  had  been  confounded 
with  dialectic,  a  distinct  place.  But  it  was  far  grander 
in  conception,  regarding  the  sciences,  as  it  did,  as  so 
many  steps  fitted  to  lead  manldnd  from  the  earth  it 
dwelt  on  to  the  presence  of  its  Supreme  Governor. 
St.  Augustine  did  not  shrink  from  the  objections 
hurled  at  his  method,  that  it  degraded  the  sacred 
science  which  man  could  gather  from  faith  alone,  and 
replied,  with  conscious  superiority,  that  God  could  have 
used  the  ministry  of  angels,  but  He  willed  to.  honour 
humanity  in  giving  forth  His  oracles  in  a  human  temple, 
and  charity  itself  would  perish  if  man  had  nothing  to 
learn  from  man,  if  one  soul  could  not  pour  its  over- 
flowings into  others. 

"  If  those,  then,  who  are  called  philosophers,  and 
especially  Platonists,  hold  doctrines  which  are  true  and 


HOW   LITERATURE   BECAME    CHRISTIAN.  233 

in  agreement  with  tlie  faith,  not  only  must  not  their 
tenets  be  held  in  suspicion,  but  must  be  reclaimed 
from  their  wrongful  possessors.  For  as  the  ^Egyptians 
had  not  only  idols  which  the  people  of  Israel  were 
bound  to  fly  from  and  loathe,  but  vases  and  ornaments 
of  gold  and  silver  and  garments  which  they  carried 
with  them  in  their  flight,  so  the  Gentile  science  is  not 
entirely  composed  of  superstitious  fictions  which  the 
Christian  must  abhor,  but  contains  liberal  arts,  ser- 
viceable to  the  truth,  wise  moral  precepts  not  created 
by  them,  but  drawn  like  so  much  gold  and  silver  from 
the  mines  of  Providence,  which  are  dispersed  over  the 
world  ;  and  these  the  Christian  may  carry  away  when 
he  has  purged  them  from  their  surrounding  dross."  * 

Thus  the  question  was  solved,  and  the  dispute 
closed  for  many  centuries.  On  the  word  of  St.  Au- 
gustine, and  upon  the  same  motives,  following  ages 
accepted  their  inheritance  from  antiquity  ;  but  the 
Church  held  it  as  a  wise  trustee  receives  the  property 
of  minors,  with  a  privilege  of  inventory.  The  same 
reason  determined  Cassiodorus,  Bede,  Alcuin,  who  all, 
by  a  j)henomenon  of  the  intellect  which  it  is  well  to 
mark,  actuated  rather  by  comparisons  than  by  reasons, 
by  images  rather  than  great  motives,  repeated  the 
metaphor  that  Christendom  was  bound  to  act  like  the 
children  of  Israel  on  coming  out  of  Egypt,  and  to  carry 
off  the  gold  and  silver  vessels  of  their  enemies.  With 
this  saying  the  science,  art,  and  tradition  of  antiquity 
passed  into  the  Middle  Age,  the  great  problem  was 
solved,  and  the  literary  and  intellectual  knot  was 
formed  which  bound  the  two  periods  into  one. 

It  remains  to    show  how  Virgil,  deified  by  pagan 

*  St,  Aujïustme. 


234  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

science,  raised  to  the  rank  of  Pontiff,  Flamen,  and 
inheritor  of  the  priestly  tradition,  became  also  the 
representative  of  the  religion  of  the  future,  the  bar- 
barous ages  having,  in  order  to'  save  him,  thrown  over 
his  body  the  end  of  the  prophet's  robe.  Thanks  to  his 
"  Fourth  Eclogue,"  the  Christian  world  regarded  him 
as  a  foreteller  of  the  new  religion  ;  and  this  interpreta- 
tion, first  given  by  Eusebius  in  the  fourth  century, 
continued  through  the  mediaeval  time,  placed  him 
among  the  prophets,  and  afforded  to  his  works  an 
increase  of  respect.  A  tradition  relates  how  St.  Paul, 
the  fierce  contemner  of  the  profane  sciences,  on  his 
arrival  at  Naples,  went  to  visit  the  tomb  of  Virgil,  and 
having  opened  the  "Eclogues,"  and  read  the  Fourth, 
burst  into  tears  ;  and  the  memory  of  this  was  preserved 
in  a  sequence  chanted  long  in  the  Cathedral  of  Mantua, 
which  recalled  the  legend  in  the  following  graceful 
lines  : — 

Ad  Maronis  mausoleum 
Ductus,  fudit  super  cum 
Pife  rorem  lacrjonse  : 
Quern  te,  inquit,  redcledissem, 
Si  te  vivum  invenissim, 
Poetarum  maxime. 

Popular  tradition  was  also  desirous  of  adding  to  this 
more  ancient  legend,  and  for  long  the  shepherd  who 
guided  travellers  to  the  poet's  tomb  used  to  show  a 
little  chapel  near  to  it  in  which  he  said  Virgil  heard 
mass. 

Thus  the  pagan  civilization  did  not  perish  entirely, 
or  deserve  to  do  so.  One  portion  of  it  was  preserved 
by  the  Church,  another  remained  in  spite  of  her. 
So  great  was  the  necessity  for  the  culture  which  we 
have  seen,  although  stricken  by  a  mortal  malady,  con- 


HOW   LITEEATUEE   BECAME    CHEISTIAN.  23.5 

tinued  for  the  education  of  races  yet  to  come.  We 
might  easily  believe  in  the  fitness  of  its  dissolution,  in 
order  that  Christianity  alone  might  hold  the  ground. 
But  no.  Christianity  itself  gathered  up  all  that  was 
lofty,  equitable,  generous,  and  beneficent  in  the  old 
order,  and  at  the  same  time,  and  in  spite  of  her  efforts, 
mythology  was  perpetuated  in  literature,  though  pro- 
scribed by  the  Church  ;  in  religion  itself  a  superstitious 
element  appeared,  and  gave  the  hand  to  the  defunct 
Paganism  of  old,  and  in  the  order  of  law  there  remained 
an  odious  system  of  taxation,  which  kept  alive  political 
oppression,  divorce  which  brought  domestic  tyranny  in 
its  train,  and  the  confusion  between  the  power  of  the 
priesthood  and  of  the  Empire  which  went  far  towards 
engendering  the  bloody  struggles  of  the  Middle  Age. 

The  Church,  then,  preserved  the  ancient  literature, 
which  also  in  spite  of  her  kept  alive,  amidst  a  mytho- 
logical Pantheism  all  the  voluptuous  and  carnal  feelings 
which  were  to  reappear  in  full  fury  in  moments  of  dis- 
order and  intellectual  anarchy.  Antiquity  gave,  in  a 
word,  its  vices  as  well  as  its  enlightenment  to  the  dark 
ages,  and,  when  tempted  to  accuse  our  ancestors  and 
reproach  them  with  their  barbarism,  we  may  well 
recognize  in  them  the  heirs  of  the  refinements  of  the 
Decline  ;  for  there  is  a  singular  analogy  between  the 
vices  of  an  used-up  society  and  those  of  a  savage  state, 
and  a  "moment  comes  in  which  the  impotence  of  the 
aged  is  brought  near  to  the  weakness  of  babes,  and  we 
know  not  whether  we  are  treating  of  a  people  which  is 
perishing,  or  of  one  rising  into  life. 

It  has  been  wished  to  separate  arbitrarily  antiquity 
from  modern  times,  by  assuming  a  kind  of  abyss  at  the 
year  476,  and  saying,  Here  is  modern  history  to  the 


236  CIVILIZATION   IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

right,  to  the  left  antiquity,  and  the  two  have  nothing 
in  common  ;  but  God,  who  is  stronger  than  the 
chroniclers,  sufifers  no  such  break,  for  He  sets  order 
and  unity  everywhere,  in  time  as  in  space,  and  makes 
even  the  disordered  passions  of  man  the  bond- slaves  of 
His  design.  The  times  which  we  divide  so  arbitrarily 
are  bound  by  two  ties,  the  golden  chain  of  weal,  wrought 
by  God  Himself,  and  the  iron  chain  of  evil,  which  He 
tolerates  ;  and  history  has  no  other  end  but  to  weld 
together  all  these  links,  and  thus  establish  that  dogma 
of  continuity,  so  fundamental  in  Christianity,  to  which 
human  society  is  aspiring.  This  task  is  assigned  to 
us,  for  we  are  not  as  independent  as  we  would  think, 
but  are  bound  to  our  forefathers  by  our  responsibility 
for  their  sins,  no  less  than  by  our  gratitude  for  their 
benefits. 


237 


CHAPTER  IX. 


THEOLOGY. 


In  the  pagan  civilization  of  the  fifth  century  we  have 
seen  the  works  whereupon  antiquity  had  expended  her 
light  and  her  strength.  The  human  mind  could  go  no 
farther  than  that  mighty  lahour  of  the  Alexandrian 
philosophy  towards  attaining  to  truth,  or  than  the 
admirable  perseverance  of  the  Roman  Law  in  establish- 
ing the  reign  of  justice.  We  have  not  hidden  the 
grandeur  and  merit  of  these  efforts,  and  as  mere  admi- 
ration profits  but  little,  have  followed  their  effects  do^Ti 
into  Christian  ages,  and  have  seen  the  institutions, 
knowledge,  literature,  and  even  the  industry  of  the  old 
world  entering,  so  to  speak,  into  the  construction  of 
modern  society  to  be  the  teaching  principle  for  those 
barbarians  who  had  encamped  on  its  ruins.  There  is 
assuredly  no  spectacle  in  which  the  power  of  human 
reason  breaks  forth  more,  and  none  in  which  it  more 
plainly  manifests  its  insufficiency.  For  all  that  pagan 
civilization,  to  the  preservation  of  which  Greek  genius 
and  Roman  common  sense  had  been  alike  devoted, 
perished  without  hope  ;  and  while  the  statues  of  Aris- 
totle and  Plato  before  the  schools  did  not  hinder  their 
successors  from  giving  themselves  up  to  all  the  aberra- 
tions of  theurgy  and  superstition,  the  wisdom  of  Paulus, 
Gains,  Ulpian,  or  Papinian  had  not  closed  the  doors 


238  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

of  the  Empire  against  the  vices  of  the  Decline.  In  that 
learned  and  polished  society  we  have  seen  fetichism 
reduced  to  a  dogma,  philosophers  believing  in  a  con- 
stant presence  of  the  deities  in  their  idols,  religious 
prostitution,  and  human  sacrifice  ;  in  the  political 
order,  gladiators,  eunuchs  crowding  the  imperial  serag- 
lios, and  slavery,  profound  excesses  which  Christianity 
was  bound  to  dissipate  ;  literature  itself  degraded, 
reduced  to  be  a  domestic  pleasure  for  some  few 
favourites,  or  at  the  service  of  a  corrupted  aristocracy. 
Moreover,  Alaric  was  at  the  gates  of  Rome,  afar  off  too 
was  heard  the  tramp  of  the  horses  of  the  Vandals, 
Huns,  and  Alani,  who  were  rising  in  masses  round 
their  chief,  and  were  about  to  bring  Attila  to  the  foot 
of  the  Alps. 

So  it  would  have  perished,  had  it  not  been  for  the 
new  principle  of  Faith  which  came  to  penetrate  and 
regenerate  it.  Reason  is  powerful,  no  doubt,  and  is 
always  present  in  man,  for  there  has  never  been  an  age 
so  unfortunate  as  not  to  give  some  sign  of  its  presence 
and  influence  ;  but  it  is  bound  within  us — held  in  in- 
active captivity  till  awoke  by  the  Word  from  without, 
which  calls  it  from  its  repose  ;  then  it  becomes  conscious 
of  and  holds  intercourse  with  itself;  and  that  it  may  fully 
realize  its  own  existence  and  its  faculties,  using  the 
same  language  which  has  come  to  its  ear  from  without, 
becomes  self-regarding,  and  names  itself  in  saying,  "  I 
think,  therefore  I  exist." 

Therefore,  as  the  Word  which  provokes  the  reason 
comes  from  something  external  to  the  reason,  it  comes 
as  an  authority  and  impulse,  an  invading  force  from 
without,  and  as  a  forerunner  of  some  other  reasonable 
existence,  which  draws  it  to  itself  by  an  irresistible 


THEOLOGY.  239 

influence.  The  soul,  when  addressed,  is  bound  to 
respond,  and  as  the  first  eflort  of  persuasion  is  to  pro- 
voke the  adhesion  of  our  intellects,  to  draw  them  into 
the  path  of  that  other  intelligence  which  approaches 
them,  so  is  that  adhesion  to  the  spoken  word,  called 
in  the  order  of  nature  human  faith,  to  which  divine 
and  supernatural  faith  are  correspondent  in  the  order 
of  theolog}'. 

Thus  Reason  and  Faith  are  two  primitive  principles, 
distinct  from  hut  not  hostile  to  one  another,  for  neither 
can  dispense  with  the  other,  reason  being  aroused  only 
by  the  persuasion  which  provokes  its  energ}%  and  faith 
only  3'ielding  itself  when  the  object  proposed  is  reason- 
able. These  principles  were  brought  into  the  world  by 
Christianity,  which  gave  to  reason  a  perpetual  honour 
and  sanctification  in  recognizing  in  it  the  Word  which 
enlightened  every  man  that  came  into  the  world,  and 
ha^dng  thus  surrounded  it  with  a  divine  glory,  and 
acknowledged  in  it  a  ray  from  the  Almighty  Himself, 
could  never  again  trample  it  under  foot.  But  it  estab- 
lished also  the  necessity  of  an  exterior  word  to  pro- 
voke responsive  action,  which  was  exjn'essed  in  a  series 
of  revelations,  the  first  of  which  was  to  be  traced  to  the 
world's  commencement,  and  having  given  mankind  its 
elementary  education,  was  renewed  through  Moses,  and, 
lastly,  sanctified,  extended,  and  fixed  for  ever  in  the 
Gospel  dispensation.  And  so  Christianity  realized,  in 
a  diviner  form,  and  proclaimed,  with  a  deeper  truth, 
what  had  been  always  a  necessity  to  society,  and  had 
ever  existed  in  the  depths  of  human  nature — the  per- 
petual agreement  of  reason  and  faith — and  raised,  at 
the  same  time,  reason  and  nature  above  themselves. 

And  in  the  Christian  view,  this  external  and  open 


240  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTUEY. 

word  of  revelation,  which  had  kept  the  light  of  the 
ages  alive  from  their  commencement,  had  uttered  two 
varieties  of  truth — the  first  of  an  order  to  which  reason, 
unaided,  could  never  attain,  for  religious  truth  is  the 
expression  of  the  relation  between  the  finite  and  the 
infinite,  and  one  of  its  elements,  the  infinite,  being 
beyond  the  power  and  scope  of  human  thought,  it 
■"esults  that  a  portion  of  it  is  by  nature  inaccessible,  to 
expound  which  a  revelation,  withdrawn  from  all  supple- 
ment and  development  by  the  human  intellect,  was  an 
imperative  necessity  ;  the  second  variety  embraced 
those  natural  truths  to  which  the  reason  of  man  could 
attain,  and  which  Christianity  attested  to  have  been 
actually  compassed  by  science,  avowing,  with  St.  Paul, 
that  the  ancients  had  known  God,  but  had  lacked 
courage  to  glorify  Him  as  God  ;  truths  grasped  only 
by  a  few,  and  still  mingled  with  obscurities,  doubts, 
and  errors,  which  had  cost  the  human  race  more  than 
three  thousand  years  of  painful  wandering  before  the 
genius  of  Plato  and  Aristotle  laboriously  produced 
them,  still  enveloped  in  error  and  false  principles,  but 
which  revelation  established  by  a  short,  sure,  and 
supremely  popular  method,  making  them  no  longer  the 
monopoly  of  a  minority,  but  the  possession  of  each  and 
of  all. 

Never  had  a  stronger  appeal  been  made  to  the  inner 
power  of  the  human  soul  than  that  addressed  to  it 
from  the  height  of  Calvary,  and  when  that  word  which 
called  for  faith  from  the  human  race,  consummatum 
est,  went  forth  from  the  lips  of  Him  who  had  come  to 
bring  it  life  and  deliverance,  the  unexampled  prodigy 
was  manifested  of  a  power  of  faith  which  no  one  could 
have  pictured  excited  in  that  decaying  world  in  which 


THEOLOGY.  241 

all  good  feeling  seemed  corrupted,  if  not  extinct.  A 
German  theologian,  in  criticising  the  text  of  the  Gospel, 
has  declared  that  the  marvel  of  it  broke  upon  him  in  a 
vivid  manner  on  reading  the  passage  which  relates  how 
Christ,  walking  by  the  Lake  of  Genneseret  and  meeting 
some  fishermen,  said  to  them,  "  Follow  me,"  and  that 
had  he  been  in  their  place  he  would  never  have  done 
so  ;  that  he  cannot  comprehend  the  inconsequence  and 
logical  deficiency  of  those  boatmen  who  abandoned 
their  nets  and  fishing-boat  to  follow  the  first  passer-by 
who  promised  them  life  eternal.  That  was,  indeed,  the 
prodigy,  and  it  appears  less  in  those  two  or  three  Gali- 
lœans  than  in  the  numberless  multitudes  of  the  Greek, 
Roman,  and  Asiatic  world  who  tore  themselves,  not 
from  their  boats  and  the  daily  labour  and  sweat  of  their 
brow,  but  from  the  pleasure  and  luxury  of  an  existence 
of  delight,  which  the  ancient  world  understood  very 
differently  from  ourselves,  to  throw  themselves  into  the 
difficulty,  privation,  and  sacrifice  of  a  Christian  life — a 
life  far  harder  than  death  itself;  for,  though  the  faith 
of  the  martyrs  may  move  us,  that  of  those  who  lived 
in  the  midst  of  a  world  which  no  longer  knew  them, 
devoted  to  the  hatred  and  execration  of  the  whole 
human  race,  must  touch  us  more.  But  that  their  num- 
ber grew,  and  their  energy  lasted,  and  that  the  early 
ages  passed  entirely  under  the  dominion  of  their  faith, 
is  attested  by  the  writings  and  letters  of  the  chief  pas- 
tors of  the  Christian  commonwealth,  as  St.  Ignatius, 
St.  Clement,  and  St.  Polycarp. 

But  faith  could  not  dispense  with  reason,  for  the 
Apostle  himself  had  said,  "  Let  your  submission  be 
complete,  but  rational."  Ratlonahile  sit  obsequlum 
vestrum.   The  moment  came  when  it  was  necessary  that 

VOL.  I.  11 


242  CIVILIZATION   IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

the  revealed  dogmas  and  heaven -born  principles  must 
be  arranged  and  defended  as  with  a  bulwark  by  all 
the  lights  of  knowledge.  The  provocation  came  from 
without,  and  the  attacks  of  pagan  philosophy  compelled 
the  early  Christians  to  defend  themselves,  to  prove 
their  doctrines  by  an  appeal  to  history,  philosophy,  and 
eloquence  ;  and  this  gave  rise  to  the  works  of  Justin, 
Athenagoras,  Tertullian,  and  the  many  other  apolo- 
gists. But  although  those  early  labours  imposed  by 
polemical  necessity  were  little,  j-et  the  combat  with 
external  enemies  was  to  bring  out  the  necessity  of  ren- 
dering an  account  to  the  disciples  of  the  school  they 
were  forming  of  the  dogmas  they  wished  to  defend, 
and  so  gave  rise  to  the  catechetical  school  of  Alexan- 
dria, whose  illustrious  children,  Pantsenus,  Clement, 
Origen,  were  to  be  seen  devoting  their  lives  to  the 
exposition  of  the  Scriptures  and  of  dogma.  We  have 
scarcely  arrived  at  the  third  century,  and  yet  Origen 
had  not  bound  himself  merely  to  the  task  of  collating 
and  comparing  different  texts,  of  publishing  editions 
in  some  measure  polyglot,  in  which  the  translations 
of  many  Jewish  authors  were  confronted  with  the 
primitive  text,  but,  grasping  these  eternal  sources  of 
verity,  had  developed  them  and  drawn  thence  theology, 
not  only  in  its  first  elements,  but  in  its  complete  form, 
as  we  find  expressed  in  his  eulogy  by  St.  Gregory 
Thaumaturgus,  resulting  in  the  unison  and  powerful 
harmony  of  that  novel  science  which  was  moulding 
itself  into  what  was  to  be  theology. 

"In  the  first  place,  he  taught  them  logic  in  accus- 
toming their  minds  not  to  receive  nor  to  reject  proofs 
at  hazard,  but  to  examine  them  carefully  without 
stopping   at   their  surface-appearance,  nor  at  sayings 


THEOLOGY.  243 

whose  lustre  dazzled  or  whose  simplicity  disgusted,  and 
not  to  reject  what  at  first  may  seem  a  paradox  but 
aftei-wards  is  shown  to  be  most  true,  but  in  a  word  to 
weigh  everything  healthily  and  without  prejudice.  He 
also  applied  their  minds  to  physics, — that  is,  to  the 
consideration  of  the  power  and  infinite  wisdom  of  the 
world's  Author  which  are  so  fitted  to  humble  us.  He 
also  taught  them  the  mathematical  sciences,  especially 
geometry  and  astronomy,  and  lastly  morality,  which  he 
did  not  confine  to  empty  discourses,  to  definitions  and 
barren  divisions,  but  taught  practically,  making  them 
mark  in  themselves  the  motions  of  passion,  that  the 
soul,  seeing  itself  as  in  a  mirror,  might  tear  up  its 
vices  by  the  roots,  and  strengthen  the  reason  which  pro- 
duced the  virtues.  To  discourse  he  joined  example, 
being  himself  a  model  of  every  virtue.  And  last  of 
all  he  brought  them  to  the  study  of  theology,  sa^dng 
that  the  most  necessary  laiowledge  was  that  of  the 
First  Cause.  He  made  them  read  whatever  the  ancients, 
whether  poets  or  philosophers,  Greeks  or  barbarians, 
had  written  on  the  subject,  except  when  they  expressly 
taught  atheism.  He  made  them  read  it  all,  that, 
knowing  the  strong  and  the  weak  in  each  opinion, 
he  might  guarantee  them  against  prejudices.  But  he 
was  their  guide  in  the  study,  leading  them  as  it  were 
by  the  hand,  that  they  might  not  stumble  ;  showing 
them  what  every  sect  had  which  was  useful,  for  he 
knew  them  all  perfectly.  He  exhorted  them  not  to 
cling  to  any  philosophy,  whatever  the  rej)utation,  but 
to  God  and  His  prophets.  And  then  he  explained  to 
them  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  of  which  he  was  the  most 
learned    interpreter  ;    and  in  this   exposition  he  gave 

them  an  idea  of  the  order  and  gist  of  the  whole  Chris- 

11  * 


244  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

tian  doctrine,  and  so  raised  their  souls  to  the  under- 
standing of  revealed  truth."* 

Thus  theology  was  already  in  existence,  and  the 
time  which  elapsed  from  the  fourth  to  the  end  of  the 
fifth  century  was  its  golden  age.  It  was  then  that 
these  great  men  appeared  who  were  the  glory  and 
admiration  of  the  East — St.  Athanasius,  St.  Basil,  St. 
Gregory  Nazianzen,  and  St.  John  Chrysostom,  not  to 
be  treated  of  here,  as  we  have  separated  Oriental  civili- 
ization  from  our  task,  though  their  writings,  translated 
into  Latin  and  inherited  by  the  monasteries  of  the 
Middle  Age,  form  part  of  the  education  of  our  times. 

In  the  West  these  men  continued  the  development 
of  the  new  science.  St.  Jerome,  who  attached  himself 
to  fixing  the  sense  of  the  sacred  text  by  Latin  transla- 
tions of  the  Bible,  and  so  commenced  true  exegesis  ; 
St.  Ambrose,  who  founded  moral  theology  ;  and  St. 
Augustine,  who  undertook  dogmatic  theology.  Time 
would  fail  to  give  the  history  of  these  great  men  in  a 
work  confined  to  that  of  ideas.  We  must  rather  see, 
within  our  narrow  limits  of  the  theological  history  of 
the  fifth  century,  at  the  price  of  what  struggles  and 
by  what  genius  Christianity  succeeded  in  keeping  its 
ground  in  spite  of  the  heresies  which  threatened  it,  on 
the  one  hand,  with  sinking  into  a  mere  mythology  (a 
new  form  of  Paganism),  on  the  other,  with  the  danger 
of  becoming  pure  rationalism,  but  one  more  philosophic 
system  to  add  to  history.  The  weighty  subject  for  our 
present  attention  is  to  find  how  amid  perils  so  various 
Christianity  was  enabled  to  remain  as  it  was,  a  verity 
revealed  but  reasonable,   full    of    mystery  in  that   it 

*  St.  Gregorii  Tliaumat.  "  Oratio  panegyrica  et  charisteria  ad 
Originem,"  passim. 


THEOLOGY.  245 

touched  the  infinite,  but  at  the  same  time  intelligible 
to  the  human  mind. 

Paganism  had  hurled  two  menaces  against  the 
nascent  faith,  persecution  and  the  Alexandrian  schools. 
These  two  dangers,  which  first  engage  the  Christian 
historian's  attention,  were,  however,  insignificant.  The 
former  multiplied  believers,  and  the  apologies  of  the 
latter  failed  to  replenish  the  deserted  fold  of  heathenism. 
But  at  the  moment  in  which  the  old  religion,  conquered 
in  every  field,  powerless  to  defend  itself,  seemed  in 
its  agony,  it  was  on  the  point  of  revival,  or  at  least  of 
dragging  its  opponents  after  it,  by  conforming  to  Chris- 
tianity. However  exorbitant  such  an  expression  may 
seem,  it  is  no  vain  utterance  of  words,  but  an  historical 
reality.  For  the  epoch  in  which  our  work  is  placed 
was  that  of  a  general  syncretism,  in  which  every  doc- 
trine, every  error,  and  some  few  truths  were  struggling 
to  bind  themselves  into  a  single  and  comprehensive 
system.  So  true  is  this  that  the  Roman  world,  so 
long  enclosed  in  its  pride,  which  had  cast  such  scorn  on 
its  vanquished  peoples,  had  gone  to  seek  on  its  knees, 
one  after  another,  all  the  gods  of  the  Orient  to  enshrine 
them  in  its  temples.  We  have  seen  Cybele  arriving 
from  Phrygia,  Osiris  and  Serapis  from  Egypt,  Mithra 
from  Persia  ;  and  when  Heliogabalus,  that  madman 
whose  frenzy  proceeded  from  a  deeper  source  than  has 
been  supposed,  who  was  possessed  by  idolatry  as  by  a 
daemon,  that  young  priest  of  the  Syrian  god  Heliogaba- 
lus, or  the  Sun,  was  transplanted  suddenly  to  the  throne 
of  the  Csesars,  and  wished  to  celebrate  his  own  bridal 
with  the  Pioman  Empire,  he  ordered  three  beds  to  be 
prepared  in  the  Temple  of  Minerva,  and  the  image  of 
the   Sun,   the   divinity   of  Asia,   that   of  Astarte,  the 


246  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

African  Venus,  and  of  Pallas,  the  deity  of  Europe  and 
of  tlie  West,  to  be  laid  upon  tbem  together.  In  the 
marriage  which  he  desired  to  solemnize  between  the 
gods  of  the  three  quarters  of  the  world,  Heliogabalus 
did  but  express,  with  singular  force,  the  spirit  which 
was  tormenting  his  age — the  necessity  for  Paganism  to 
gather  up  all  its  forces  to  resist  an  enemy  which  it  had 
tried  in  vaifi  to  stifle  by  punishment,  and  ipiust  now 
attempt  to  conquer  by  a  novel  method.  And  if  this 
tendency  was  thus  manifest  at  Eome,  what  must  it 
have  been  at  Alexandria? — that  city,  along  whose 
streets,  of  two  leagues  in  length,  amidst  colonnades  of 
rich  workmanship  raised  by  the  Ptolemies,  thronged 
Eomans,  Greeks,  Jj^gyptians,  and  all  the  navigators 
who  came  from  the  East,  traversed  the  Red  Sea,  and  de- 
scended the  Nile  to  this  emporium  of  the  world.  Here 
reigned  all  the  doctrines  of  Greek  philosophy,  regene- 
rated by  the  sages  of  the  Museum,  by  Callimachus, 
Lycophron,  and  the  rest  who  had  sought  out  the 
origin  of  those  fables  which  men  had  but  weakened 
by  adornment.  Those  memories  of  Chaldœa  and  of 
Persia,  those  traditions  of  Zoroaster  and  the  naturally 
nearer  traditions  of  ancient  Egypt,  that  multitude  of 
philosophies  and  apocryphal  predictions  which  filled 
the  first  ages  of  the  Alexandrine  science,  witnessed  to 
the  effort  made  to  lay  hold  again  on  the  ancient  sacer- 
dotal traditions,  in  order  to  revive  that  hieratic  science 
which  was  half  extinct. 

Whilst  all  these  doctrines  were  approaching  each 
other,  a  great  movement  was  at  work  behind  them, 
which  perhaps  explains  this  sort  of  revival  in  the  first 
Christian  ages  ;  for  the  time  had  arrived  for  a  new  form 
of  heathenism  to  seize  upon  Eastern  Asia.     The  sect 


THEOLOGY.  247 

of  Bhucldlia,  born  about  five  centuries  and  a  half  before 
our  era,  for  long  firmly  enclosed  within  the  limits  of 
Hiudostan,  and  in  the  bands  of  a  philosophic  school, 
had  taken  flight  with  its  brilliant  mythology,  at  once 
popular  and  learned,  and  capable  of  fascinating  and 
subduing  the  minds  and  imaginations  of  entire  nations. 
Having  burst  over  the  borders  of  the  country  to  which  it 
had  once  been  confined,  Bhuddhism  at  the  year  Gl  b.c. 
made  a  new  appearance  on  the  scene,  and  invaded 
all  Northern  Asia,  so  as  to  extend  from  the  sea  of 
Japan  to  the  coasts  of  the  Caspian,  filling  all  the  inter- 
vening countries  and  rekindling  the  religious  zeal  of 
their  countless  populations.  This  great  movement  evi- 
dently could  not  but  influence  the  pagan  development 
of  the  AYest,  and  was  destined  to  stir  nations  who 
remained  at  a  certain  point  strangers  to  it.  As  it  was 
in  the  East  and  among  the  Tartar  tribes  that  the  agi- 
tation began  which,  spreading  from  man  to  man,  was  to 
end  in  throwing  the  Huns,  Alani,  and  Goths  upon  the 
Ehine  banks,  and  even  beyond  the  Pyrenees,  so  an 
Orientalized  Paganism  put  forth  its  last  effort  to  pene- 
trate the  faith  of  Christendom. 

It  effected  its  entrance  through  the  Gnostic  sects. 
The  Gnosis  was  the  designation  of  a  higher  science  or 
initiation  reserved  for  a  handful  of  chosen  spirits.  It 
was  one  of  the  chief  characteristics  of  Paganism  to 
divide  the  human  race,  to  refuse  recognition  to  its  pri- 
mitive equality,  to  make  certain  classes  to  spring  from 
the  head  of  the  Deity,  others  from  the  stomach,  legs, 
or  feet,  and  to  measure  out  enlightenment,  like  justice, 
with  a  grudging,  unequal,  and  jealous  hand.  The  Gnosis 
possessed  the   other  pagan   principle   of  confounding 


248  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

creation  with  the  creature,  and  by  whatever  means  it 
tried  to  explain  the  commencement  of  things  ultimately 
to  unite  them  in  one  substance.  It  represented  God 
as  a  pleroma,  a  plenitude  of  existence  which  overflowed, 
a  vessel  surcharged,  which  let  its  superabundance  drip 
over  in  a  multitude  of  emanations,  firstly  in  the  form 
of  Mons,  semi-divine  essences  which  descended  in 
steps  of  successive  existences  to  the  lowest  ranks  of 
creation.  These  divine  outpourings,  which  had  as  it 
were  a  perpetual  migration  to  accomplish,  had  names, 
were  divided  into  gods  and  goddesses,  and  became  in 
consequence  mythological  personifications  ;  so  that  the 
Gnosis  tells  at  length  of  the  adventures  of  Soj)liia,  the 
divine  wisdom,  one  of  the  first  emanations  of  God, 
which,  wandering  on  the  brink  of  chaos,  fell  into  the 
abyss,  and  could  only  escape  by  the  intervention  of 
Christ.  She  then  was  to  be  manifested  in  a  female 
devotee,  who  was  shown  as  the  destined  propagator  of 
the  Gnostic  doctrine  ;  and  accordingly  Simon  Magus  led 
about  with  him  a  woman  called  Helen,  as  the  incarnate 
soul  of  the  world.  The  pagan  influence  breaks  out 
again  in  these  poetical  adventures  lent  to  the  divine 
emanations,  but  especially  in  the  eternity  of  matter,  a 
principle  common  to  every  scheme  of  Gnostic  doctrine, 
which  thus  seated  a  resisting  power  by  the  side  of  the 
Divine  Power,  an  evil  face  to  face  with  a  good  principle, 
assigned  two  causes  instead  of  one,  and  sowed  the  seeds 
of  dualism  by  its  own  pantheism.  Such  is  an  abridg- 
ment of  the  doctrine  of  Valentinus,  one  of  the  first 
Gnostics,  as  developed  by  Basilides  and  corrected  by 
Carpocrates  and  Marcion.  Its  sects  multiplied  and 
brought   about  their  division,    and  thence  their  ruin. 


THEOLOGY.  249 

Like  all  false  doctrines,  it  perished  by  that  propagation 
which  is  the  salvation  of  truth,  but  by  which  errors 
disappear  in  their  variations. 

At  the  end  of  three  centuries,  when  the  sects  who 
sought  to  bring  Paganism  into  Christianity  seemed 
near  their  end,  their  errors  were  reunited  and  strength- 
ened in  the  new  doctrine  of  the  Manichaeans.  Manes 
was  a  Persian  by  origin,  and  two  distinct  but  recon- 
cilable traditions  as  to  his  life,  and  the  circumstances 
under  which  his  system  was  founded,  have  come  down 
to  us.  One  relates  that  he  was  born  in  Persia,  and  in 
the  course  of  long  travels  in  Hindostan,  Turkistan, 
and  China,  encountered  Buddhism  in  its  rise,  or  at 
least  in  the  ardour  of  its  first  propagandism.  The 
other  tells  how  the  true  author  of  the  system  was  not 
Manes,  but  a  certain  Scythianus,  who  had  a  disciple 
named  Terebinthus,  or  Buddha,  the  latter  having  a 
slave  called  Manes,  who  received  from  the  widow  of 
Buddha  his  liberty,  and  doubtless  his  doctrine  also. 
Both  accounts  agree  in  assigning  to  Manes  a  birthplace 
in  Persia,  a  long  jieriod  of  travel,  and  the  work  of 
uniting  the  belief  of  his  own  country  with  the  Oriental 
dualism,  and  the  other  dogmas  which  the  disciples  of 
Buddha  had  circulated  through  the  East. 

It  is  not  astonishing,  then,  that  this  heresy,  pre- 
senting as  it  did  some  features  of  the  Oriental  mytho- 
logy, was  not  wanting  in  a  certain  grandeur.  It 
admitted  two  Principles — the  one,  God,  or  SjHrit  ;  the 
other,  Satan,  or  Matter  ;  the  former  dwelling  with  His 
jî^ons,  or  primitive  emanations,  in  the  immeasurable 
world  of  light  ;  the  latter  in  the  sphere  of  darkness, 
equally  eternal,  but  limited  by  the  realms  of  light,  over 
which  it  cast  its  shadow,  as  a  cone  of  obscurity  veils  in 

11  t 


250  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUKY. 

part  the  face  of  a  star.*  The  powers  of  darkness, 
beholding  the  splendour  of  the  Deity,  undertook  the 
conquest  of  those  fields  of  light  of  whose  beauty  they 
were  enamoured.  Thereupon  God,  the  author  of  Good, 
sent  forth  as  a  guardian  of  the  frontiers  of  His  king- 
dom a  new  emanation,  the  Soul  of  the  World.  Planted 
between  the  limits  of  the  light  and  the  darkness,  it  fell 
to  pieces  before  the  inevitable  assault  of  the  powers  of 
the  latter. t  Then  God  sent  His  Spirit  in  aid  of  the 
World- Soul  given  over  to  the  fury  of  the  shadowy 
forces.  It  came  and  took  from  its  shattered  fragments 
each  of  the  members  of  primitive  man,  and  therewith 
made  the  world.  It  chose  the  brightest  and  most 
spiritual  constituent  to  create  therefrom  the  sun,  the 
moon,  and  the  stars  ;  from  its  aerial  but  more  material 
parts  it  made  the  atmosphere  and  the  purer  existences  ; 
from  its  entirely  material  elements  the  animal  and 
sensible  portions  of  this  world.  But  the  latter  was 
under  the  empire  of  those  dark  powers  to  whom  Matter 
appertained,  and  so  the  World- Soul,  dispersed  every- 
where, existing  in  every  atom  of  the  visible  world,  was 
held  in  a  sort  of  captivity.  The  divine  essence  spread 
through  it  had  to  struggle  against  its  shackles  with  a 
long  effort  for  deliverance,  and  this,  alike  of  heavenly 
origin,  and  a  suffering  prisoner,  was  no  other  than 
Jesus  patibilis,  whose  conflicts  formed  the  true  and 
only  Passion  endured  by  the  Word  which  went  forth 
from  God.t 

Moreover,  the   soul   of    the   primitive   man,    which 


*  St.  Aug.  (le  Vera  Religione,  c.  xcvi. 

f  St.  Aug.  de  Agoue  Christ,  lib.  i.  4  ;  Id.  de  Moribus  Manich. 
lib.  ii.  passim. 

I  St.  Aug.  de  Hseresibus,  c.  xlvi. 


THEOLOGY.  251 

resided  in  the  sun  and  moon  which  it  had  helped  to- 
create,  had  become  a  power  which  had  taken  the  name 
of  Christ,  who,  according  to  the  Manichœans,  dwelt  in 
the  heavens — now  in  the  sun,  now  in  the  moon — but 
seeking  from  the  former  to  attract  to  Himself  the 
spiritual  particles  which  were  wandering  through 
matter.  He  had  become  incarnate  in  a  human  body, 
but  which  was  unreal,  and  had  vanished  at  the  moment 
in  which  the  Jews  stretched  it  on  the  Cross.  Thus, 
therefore.  He  had  not  come  into  the  world  to  shed  the 
blood  which  He  did  not  possess,  but  to  infuse  into  it  a 
truth  which  would  raise  the  divinely  emanated  souls  of 
men  to  the  light,  and  bring  them  to  Him.  There  were 
three  categories  of  souls.  The  j^neiimatic,  or  most 
perfect  souls  were  able  to  discard  the  flesh  and  purify 
themselves  in  the  Sun.  The  iisychical  souls  were  pas- 
sionate and  weak,  but  not  evil  ;  their  struggle,  though 
real,  could  not  afifect  their  triumph,  and  they  were  forced 
to  pass  through  another  existence  in  another  body.  The 
hylic  souls  were  entirely  material,  daemon-possessed, 
and  reprobate,  without  any  hope  of  future  immortality. 
Those  who  between  these  two  extremes  were  struggling 
to  return  to  God  had  to  traverse,  according  to  the 
dogma  of  Metempsychosis,  a  fresh  series  of  existences 
in  other  men,  or  beasts,  and  even  plants,  before  their 
return  to  Him.  Such,  according  to  the  Manichaean 
conception,  was  the  law  of  the  Universe  ;  its  end  being 
to  reunite  all  the  dispersed  particles  of  the  divine 
power,  and  bring  them  back  to  their  source  ;  ,for  the 
soul  that,  triumphing  over  every  obstacle,  arrived  at 
the  close  of  life,  was  at  once  transported  to  the  presence 
of  the  Supreme  Power  in  the  realms  of  light. 

The  Mauichseans  reduced  their  moral  system  to  the 


252  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

three  seals  of  the  lips,  the  hands,  and  the  breast.  The 
object  of  the  seal  of  the  lips  was  to  close  them  against 
blasphemy,  and  particularly  all  animal  food,  the  use  of 
which  was  forbidden  as  a  Satanic  corruption,  tending 
naturally  to  weigh  down  the  divine  particles  within, 
and  bind  them  to  earth.  The  seal  of  the  hands  for- 
bade on  the  same  motive  the  slaughter  of  animals,  or 
the  gathering  of  plants,  which  were  purer  still,  as 
being  so  many  vents  whereby  the  perfumes  and  exha- 
lations of  earth  rose  to  heaven,  to  restore  in  their  light 
mists  the  portions  of  divinity  which  longed  to  remount 
to  their  source.  The  seal  of  the  breast  was  to  close 
the  heart  to  all  passion,  for  Manes  forbade  marriage 
and  the  procreation  of  children,  as  tending  by  the  in- 
crease of  the  human  race,  in  long  series  of  generations, 
to  lengthen  the  divine  captivity  and  send  new  souls  to 
languish  and  groan  upon  earth,  and  so  commit  the 
greatest  crime  against  the  Soul  of  God  whose  deliver- 
ance mankind  was  bound  to  further.* 

Such  were  the  fundamental  principles  of  the  system, 
and  in  them  its  utter  immorality  is  manifest.  These 
distinctions  of  souls  into  three  classes,  the  division  of 
mankind  into  two  parts,  the  elect  and  the  hearers,  the 
denial  of  any  enlightenment  to  non-Mauichœans,  made 
the  system  an  outrage  to  tli^  human  conscience.  Thus, 
giving  alms  to  any  one  external  to  the  sect  was  for- 
bidden, as  affording  him  a  means  of  insinuating  as 
nourishment  to  his  impure  and  material  body  substances 
which,  if  placed  on  Manichœan  lips,  would  be  cleansed 
and  raised  towards  God;f  and  the  contempt   thrown 

*  St.  Aug.  Dc  Moribus  Mauich.  lib.  ii.  ;  De  Hœresibus, 
passim. 

f  St.  Aug.  De  Moribus  Manich.  lib.  ii.  liii. 


THEOLOGY.  253 

over  the  whole  of  nature  degraclecl  the  Divine  work- 
manship), and  resulted  ine\"itahly  in  an  interdiction  of 
all  property  as  one  more  bond  to  fix  man  to  the  cor- 
rupted earth,  whose  curse  extended  to  those  also  who 
tilled  it  with  harrow  and  plough,  w^hose  plants  were 
full  of  hallowed  life,  and  those  who  reaped  them  guilty 
of  a  crime.  It  tended  to  the  destruction  of  the  family, 
for  marriage  was  under  a  ban,  and  the  giving  of  chil- 
dren to  the  state  and  fresh  shoots  to  the  Manichsean 
Church  accounted  the  greatest  of  sins,  and  its  doctrine, 
owing  to  human  nature's  inextinguishable  passions,  had 
for  a  result,  by  ine\dtable  though  unavowed  conse- 
quence, the  ruin  of  man  himself.  To  this  pointed 
those  maxims,  inexpressibly  true,  which  established  dis- 
tinctions between  the  requirements  of  nature  and  the 
prohibitions  of  law,  the  forbidden  and  the  tolerated 
among  the  pleasures  of  sense,  and  which  inaugurated 
a  state  of  manners  to  the  real  and  frightful  corrup- 
tion of  which  contemporary  evidence  bears  witness. 
We  have  thus  sufficiently  shown  the  profoundly  pagan 
character  of  the  Manichsean  errors  ;  but  on  closer  con- 
sideration of  its  origin,  of  the  country  and  personal 
adventures  of  its  chief  apostle,  we  can  easily  recognize 
in  it  traces  of  the  Persian  dualism,  the  opposition  of 
Ormuzd  and  Ahriman,  and  the  eternal  struggle  on  their 
respective  frontiers  of  the  realms  of  light  and  of  dark- 
ness. This  was  the  essence  of  the  religion  of  Zoroas- 
ter, but  in  the  battle  between  these  principles  there 
was  a  third,  of  mediating  character,  called  Mithra,  the 
worship  of  whom  had  attained  such  singular  popularity 
on  its  importation  into  the  Western  Empire  that  Com- 
modus  even  dared  to  immolate  a  man,  and  Julian  at 
Constantinople  established  games  in  his  honour,  while 


254  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

numberless  monuments  bear  witness  to  the  worship  of 
him  at  Mihm,  in  the  Tyrol,  throughout  the  two  pro- 
vinces of  Gaul,  and  in  the  remotest  parts  of  Germany. 
But  Manichœism  had  an  element  ignored  by  the  system 
of  Zoroaster,  which  in  approaching  nearer  the  infancy 
of  the  world  had  never  hurled  an  absolute  curse  at  the 
flesh,  nor  believed  in  the  entire  degradation  of  created 
matter,  nor  the  captivity  of  the  divine  essence,  nor 
dreamt  of  prohibiting  marriage  and  procreation  of  chil- 
dren— doctrines  which  sprang  from  that  worship  of 
Bu4dha,  the  energetic  and  passionate  propagandism  of 
which  we  have  observed  in  the  early  centuries  of  the 
Christian  era.  But  it  is  difficult  to  decide  whether 
Manes  drew  his  system  originally  from  these  Buddhist 
sources,  or  found  the  teaching  which  he  handed  down  to 
his  disciples  held  by  former  Gnostic  sects,  themselves 
impregnated  with  the  Oriental  doctrine.  Yet,  however 
this  may  be,  it  was  instinct  with  Paganism,  and  from 
that  one  cause,  perhaps,  the  Manichsean  belief  exercised 
so  incredible  an  influence  over  the  minds  which  had 
seemed  entirely  severed  from  the  errors  of  the  pagan 
world. 

At  the  end  of  the  fourth  century,  under  Theodosius, 
when  Christianity  had  enjoyed  a  century  of  sway  over 
the  mind  of  man  and  the  provinces  of  the  Empire, 
Manichneism  became  bolder  than  ever,  and  the  idolatry 
of  old  seemed  to  have  found  its  avenger.  Its  tenets 
spread  with  marvellous  rapidity  in  both  East  and  West, 
and  made  a  conquest  of  St.  Augustine  himself,  who  for 
nine  years  was  one  of  the  hearers  of  Manes,  and  strug- 
gled vainly  against  the  problem  of  the  origin  of  evil, 
which  he  used  to  turn  in  every  sense  on  his  tear- 
bedewed  couch,  to  return  always  to  the  same  question, 


THEOLOGY.  255 

"  How  was  evil  created."  Finding  no  solution  in  the 
early  notions  of  Chiistianity  which  he  had  received 
from  his  mother,  he  suffered  his  mind  to  be  drawn  to- 
wards the  fables  of  Manichœism,  and  hung  upon  the 
lips  of  the  eloquent  preachers  who  told  of  the  strife  of 
the  two  principles,  of  the  agony  of  Jesus  patihil'is,  the 
sufferings  of  all  creation,  even,  as  he  says,  to  the  tear 
shed  by  the  fig  when  dissevered  from  the  branch  to 
which  it  had  clung. 

Such  were  the  errors  to  which  this  gi-eat  intellect  had 
fallen  a  prey,  until  the  wiser  philosophy  of  the  Platon- 
ists  and  the  eloquence  of  Ambrose  snatched  it  from 
these  delusive  fables,  and  made  it  their  most  formidable 
opponent  by  assigning  him  the  mission  of  refuting  and 
destroying  them,  by  rehabilitating  in  the  face  of  the 
heathen  world  a  philosophical,  holy,  and  reasonable  view 
of  the  origin  of  evil.  In  default  of  an  analysis  of  his 
works  on  the  subject,  the  following  passage  from  his 
book,  "DeMoribusManichseorum,"  mil  suffice  to  show 
their  tendency  : — 

"  That  which  especially  merits  the  name  of  being  is 
what  always  remains  in  its  own  likeness,  is  not  subject 
to  change  or  corruption,  or  to  lapse  of  time,  but  the 
same  in  conduct  in  the  present  as  in  the  past.  For 
the  word  Being  carries  with  it  the  thought  of  another 
permanent  and  immutable  nature.  We  can  name  no 
other  such  but  God  Himself,  and  if  you  seek  a  contrary 
principle  to  Him,  you  will  not  find  it,  for  existence  has 
no  contrary  but  non-existence. 

"  If  you  define  evil  as  that  which  is  against  nature, 
you  speak  truly  ;  but  you  overturn  your  heresy,  for  all 
that  is  contrary  to  nature  tends  to  self-destruction,  and 
to   make    what   is  non-existent.     What   the   ancients 


256  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

called  nature  we  name  essence  and  substance,  and 
therefore  in  the  Catholic  doctrine  God  is  called  the 
author  of  every  nature  and  every  substance,  and  by  it  is 
understood  that  He  is  not  the  author  of  evil.  For  how 
could  the  author  of  being  to  everything  which  exists  be 
the  cause  by  which  anything  already  existent  should 
cease  to  be,  lose  its  essence,  and  tend  towards  nothing  ? 
And  how  can  your  evil  principle,  that  you  pretend  to  be 
the  supreme  ill,  be  contrary  to  nature,  if  you  attribute 
to  it  a  nature  and  a  substance  ?  For  if  it  works  against 
itself  it  will  destroy  its  own  existence,  which  it  must 
succeed  in  doing  to  arrive  at  the  supremacy  of  evil,  but 
which  it  cannot  do  according  to  you,  as  you  predicate  of 
it  not  only  existence  but  eternity  of  existence. 

"Evil,  then,  is  not  an  essence,  but  a  deprivation  and 
a  disorder.  All  that  tends  to  existence  tends  to  order. 
For  to  be  is  to  be  one,  and  the  nearer  anything  stands 
to  unity  so  much  the  fuller  is  its  participation  in  exist- 
ence, it  being  the  work  of  unity  to  give  concord  and 
arrangement  to  its  constituent  part  :  this  order  gives 
existence,  disorder  takes  it  away,  and  everything  that 
has  an  internal  principle  of  disorder  tends  to  dissolution. 
But  the  goodness  of  God  forbids  things  to  arrive  at 
that  point  ;  and  even  to  those  creatures  of  His  who  miss 
their  end  He  gives  such  order  that  they  are  placed  in 
their  most  congruous  place,  so  that  by  regular  effort 
they  may  again  ascend  to  the  rank  whence  they  had 
fallen.  For  this  cause  reasoning  souls,  in  whom  free- 
will is  powerful,  if  they  distance  themselves  from  God, 
are  arranged  by  Him  as  befits  them  in  the  lowest  degrees 
of  creation,  so  that  they  become  miserable  by  a  divine 
judgment,  in  accordance  with  their  merits."  * 

*  De  Moribus  Manichaîorum,  lib.  iii.  2,  et  seq. 


THEOLOGY.  257 

These  theories,  though  abstract,  afforded  a  vast 
comfort  to  the  human  mind  as  it  emerged  from  its 
Manichsean  frenzy,  from  the  pagan  fables  which  were 
wafting  it  back  to  all  the  spells  of  Greek  mythology, 
into  the  light  of  a  purer  philosophy  and  possession  of 
the  innate  reason.  In  accepting  them,  the  Christian 
world  divorced  for  ever  the  tales  which  too  long  tyran- 
nized over  the  intellect,  but  yet  while  it  escaped  the 
peril  of  becoming  a  mythology,  it  fell  under  the  risk 
of  reducing  its  system  to  so  rational  a  form  as  to  sink 
into  mere  philosophical  speculation. 

Among  these  new  forms  of  heresy  two  stand  out  as 
especially  to  be  noticed.  Arianism  and  Pelagianism, 
infants  of  those  two  philosophical  systems  of  antiquity 
which  had  most  attraction  for  Christian  minds,  were 
most  calculated  to  strike  them  by  their  metaphysical 
character  or  pure  morality,  the  doctrine  respectively  of 
Plato  and  of  Zeno. 

The  former  gave  a  lofty  notion  of  the  Deity,  whom  it 
represented  as  acting  on  the  world  by  means  of  ideas, 
which  Plato  abstained  from  defining,  and,  in  calling 
them  only  the  principle  of  all  knowledge,  avoided  ex- 
plaining their  place  of  residence,  whether  within  or 
external  to  the  Deity,  whether  they  were  reduced  to  one 
idea  or  the  many,  whether,  reunited,  they  formed  the 
Aôyoç,  or  Divine  Word,  or  continued  in  distinct  and 
personal  existence. 

On  all  these  points  the  master  kept  silence,  but  as 
the  disciples  did  not  imitate  his  reserve,  these  questions 
have  been  the  continued  torment  of  the  schools  of 
Platonism.  An  Alexandrian  Jew  named  Philo,  tor- 
tured by  the  wish  of  adapting  his  Mosaic  creed  to  the 
doctrines  of  their  philosophy,  undertook  to    establish 


258  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

God's  creation  of  the  universe  by  the  aid  of  a  perfect  idea 
or  archetj^pe,  wherein  was  reflected  the  creative  law, 
which  was  personified  in  the  wisdom  of  Solomon  and 
the  Word  of  the  sacred  writings.  God,  not  being  able 
to  act  directly  on  matter,  as  too  evil  and  weak  for  His 
action,  had  created  the  Word  before  the  world  to  serve  as 
intermediary  between  the  Divine  Will  and  this  imperfect 
and  corrupt  universe.  Therefore  the  Word  was  inferior 
to  God,  and  beneath  it  were  produced  a  series  of  ema- 
nations to  which  Philo  gave  a  distinct  personality,  and 
named  them  sometimes  ideas,  sometimes  angels. 

His  doctrine  was  destined  to  inspire  that  of  the 
Alexandrian  commentators  Numenius  and  Plotinus,  who 
evolved  a  trinity  formed  of  unity  (to  sv),  absolute  intelli- 
gence {vouç),  and  the  soul  of  the  world  (^^^xw  toS  Travrôg), 
which,  far  from  inspiring  the  idea  of  the  Christian 
Trinity,  did  not  appear  in  any  precise  form  till 
Christianity  had  promulgated  its  doctrines,  and  made 
known  the  mysteries  on  which  this  philosophical  triad 
was  designed.  But  a  certain  number  of  minds  fell 
into  error  on  comparing  the  two  dogmas,  especially 
those  of  a  philosophical  bent,  who  were  fascinated  by 
the  old  lore  and  the  Platonic  doctrines,  nourished  on 
Plotinus,  and  steeped  in  that  Alexandrian  speculation 
which  Tertullian  had  especially  defied  when  he  cast  his 
ban  upon  pagan  philosophy  and  letters  ;  the  Judaizers 
also,  who  though  believing  in  the  Christian  scheme, 
found  it  heavy  for  their  faith,  and  therefore  sought  to 
rob  it  of  its  aureole  ;  and  lastly  the  mighty  multitude 
who  had  entered  the  Church  in  the  train  of  the  emperors, 
and  sought  to  attenuate  its  mysteries  by  seeking  refuge 
in  the  reception  of  a  dogma  of  higher  morality  than 
any  antiquity  had  known,  but  which  would  ill  support 


THEOLOGY.  259 

the  miraculous  element  of  Christianity.  And  these 
three  classes  of  minds  became  the  components  of  the 
Arian  sect,  Arius  himself,  on  his  appearance,  speaking 
only  as  their  organ. 

Arius  rehabilitated  Philo  in  professing  that  God  was 
too  pure  to  act  upon  creation,  and  that  the  world  could 
not  support  the  divine  action,  that  it  was  necessary  to 
utter  a  middle  existence,  purer  than  creation,  less  holy 
than  Grod  Himself,  namely,  the  Word,  created  and  not 
eternal,  enjoying  a  great  but  not  infinite  share  of  light 
and  wisdom  ;  holy,  but  not  so  immutable  in  sanctity  as 
to  preclude  the  possibility  of  a  fall,  submitted  in  fact  by 
God,  who  foresaw  the  triumphant  issue,  to  the  supreme 
probation  of  an  incarnation,  and  assigned  in  recomjDense 
as  the  Creator  and  Saviour  of  mankind.  This  \Yord, 
united  to  a  human  body,  became  the  man  Jesus  ;  and 
thus  Christ  had  no  real  divinity,  and  as  man  had  never 
been  in  immediate  relation  with  God,  the  original  fall 
had  not  the  same  gravity,  nor  redemption  the  same 
effect  ;  it  could  not  bring  man,  still  too  feeble,  into  com- 
munion with  the  infinite  Goodness  and  Wisdom,  and  so 
became  a  bald  teaching  by  the  example  of  a  divinely- 
inspired  man  named  Jesus,  who  was  a  mere  prophet  or 
sage,  with  superior  enlightenment  to  his  fellows. 

At  the  same  time  the  doctrine  of  Zeno  made  many 
converts.  Its  Stoic  morality,  so  nobly  stern  and  mor- 
tifying to  carnal  impulse,  had  a  gi-eat  fascination  for 
manly  and  ascetic  natures,  like  those  of  the  men  who 
took  refuge  from  the  world  in  the  deserts  of  the 
Thebaid  that  they  might  bring  their  body  into  subjec- 
tion. It  need  not  astonish  us  to  see  St.  Nilus  putting 
into  the  hands  of  his  anchorites  the  manual  of 
Epictetus,  or  Evagrius  of  Pontus  falling  into  heresy 


260  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

through  the  system  of  Zeno.  It  exalted  human  nature 
as  being  that  of  God  Himself,  whence  it  followed  that 
the  two  laws  of  nature  and  of  reason  sufficed  as  a  rule 
of  life,  and  that  by  their  aid  man  could  rise  to  the  same 
or  even  a  higher  level  than  the  Deity  Himself.  "For," 
said  Seneca,  "  what  difference  is  there  between  the  wise 
man  and  Jupiter  ?  the  latter  can  effect  no  more  than 
him  ;  the  only  advantage  he  has  over  him  is  that  of 
having  been  good  for  a  longer  time,  but  virtue  itself  is 
not  enhanced  by  a  longer  duration.  The  sage  despises 
material  advantages  as  much  as  Jupiter,  and  excels  him 
in  this  respect,  that  the  god  abstains  from  pleasures 
which  he  cannot,  the  sage  from  those  he  will  not,  avail 
himself  of."  *  And  so  man  by  his  own  strength  rose 
superior  to  his  God  ;  and  such  dreams  seduced  many  a 
hermit's  soul  in  the  contemplative  hours  of  his  long 
vigils  ;  till,  carried  away  by  this  stoicism,  the  monk 
Pelagius  arrived  at  the  profession  of  the  doctrine  that 
nature  had  never  suffered  original  sin,  but  had  remained 
intact  and  always  able  to  raise  itself  to  God  by  its  own 
strength  ;  that  grace  was  useless,  and  if  it  existed  at  all 
was  nothing  but  the  possibility  of  well-doing,  the  fact 
of  human  liberty,  the  divine  law  promulgated  in  the 
gospel,  a  light  innate  to  the  intellect  and  shining  there 
without  any  impulse  or  aid  to  the  will  from  without  ; 
prayer  had  no  meaning,  and  with  it  vanished  the  con- 
solation which  feeble  man  found  in  recourse  to  the 
Almighty. 

Such  were  the  essential  errors  of  Pelagius,  against 
which  St.  Augustine  declared  war  as  Athanasius  had 
done  against  the  heresy  of  Arius.  The  two  systems, 
near  in  point  of  time,  filled  a  century  and  a  half  with 

*  Epist.  ad  Lucilium,  Ixxiii.  13. 


THEOLOGY.  2G1 

controversy,  which  roused  into  activity  the  whole 
Christian  world,  moulded  its  polemics,  and  gave  in- 
spiration to  its  genius.  We  need  not  speak  of  the 
councils  without  number  which  forced  men  to  occupy 
themselves  with  the  most  difficult  problems  in  the  cycle 
of  Christian  metaphysics,  and  roused  their  minds  from 
their  sloth  to  precipitate  them  into  that  pregnant  strife 
which  called  for  crucial  proof  of  their  subtlety  and 
skill  in  handling  all  the  resources  of  dialectic,  nor  of 
the  mighty  travail  of  the  intellect  which  was  destined 
to  give  birth  to  modern  theological  science,  but  need  only 
mark  that  in  repelling  the  double  error,  Christianity 
repudiated  as  well  the  idea  of  being  but  a  system  of 
philosophy,  to  remain  a  religion,  as  it  had  been  first 
announced.  Lactantius  summed  this  up  in  his  me- 
morable sentence,  "  Christianity  can  never  be  a  philo- 
sophy without  religion,  nor  a  religion  without  philo- 
sophy." The  faith  is  dogmatic,  and  therefore  more 
than  an  opinion,  but  a  dogma  that  is  entirely  reason- 
able. Had  Pelagianism  or  Arianism  triumphed,  and 
the  Church  creed  become  a  philosophy,  the  consequences 
would  have  been  that  as  Arius  suppressed  the  relation 
of  Christ  with  God,  and  Pelagius  those  of  man  with 
Christ,  in  denying  grace,  original  sin,  and  redemption, 
so  all  the  supernatural  intercourse  between  God  and 
man  being  snapped,  all  religion  would  have  perished, 
for  religion  (religare)  is  but  a  bond  between  the  two 
extremes  of  God  and  man,  the  Infinite  and  the  finite  ; 
and  with  the  disappearance  of  the  mysteries  which 
enshrined  the  two  principles  of  faith  and  love,  nothing 
would  have  remained  but  a  learned,  subtle,  but  feeble 
deism,  impotent,  as  the  mere  scientific  opinion  ever  will 
be,  to  fertilize  and  regenerate  humanity  in  its  entirety. 


262  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Science  has  a  sufficiently  ample  and  glorious  domain, 
but  it  is  not  lier  mission  to  be  popular  and  universal,  for 
limitation  to  a  small  minority  of  the  race  is  the  con- 
dition of  her  existence.  Even  to-day,  in  the  full  light 
of  civilization  and  of  Christianity,  how  many  meta- 
physicians in  Europe  are  there  who,  by  the  effort  of 
their  own  unaided  thought,  can  arrive  at  a  precise 
notion  of  God  and  of  man's  destiny  ?  And  if  so,  how 
much  the  more,  when  the  world  had  but  just  emerged 
from  her  proof  by  blood  and  lire,  and  was  still  groaning 
beneath  the  sword  of  the  barbarian  ?  What  would 
then  have  been  the  issue  had  not  the  principle  of  Faith 
been  endorsed  in  the  flanks  of  that  new  society,  and 
the  reconstructing  influence  been  revealed  at  the  period 
of  seemingly  utter  ruin  ?  'More  than  knowledge  was 
wanting  for  the  training  of  those  bloody  and  coarse- 
minded  hordes  which  were  vomited  from  every  quarter 
of  the  East,  and  to  bring  them  to  that  Middle  Age 
whose  entire  civilization  was  to  be  but  a  development 
of  theology. 

The  most  salient  feature  of  these  barbarous  centuries 
of  the  Middle  Age,  and  that  least  open  to  doubt,  is  their 
supremely  logical  character.  From  that  proceeded  the 
intense  fascination  exercised  by  syllogistic  reasonings 
upon  a  period  which  could  never  lay  down  a  principle 
without  seeking  to  deduce  its  consequences,  nor  realize 
a  great  event  without  labouring  to  find  its  cause.  From 
this  sprang  all  the  great  efforts  and  mighty  achieve- 
ments of  the  mediaeval  epoch.  Theology  was  destined 
to  bring  about  not  only  the  marvellous  intellectual 
development  of  the  thirteenth  century,  under  the  grand 
intellects  of  St.  Thomas  Aquinas  and  St.  Bonaventura, 
but  also  the  Crusades,  the  struggle  of  the  priesthood 


THEOLOGY.  263 

and  the  Empire,  the  reign  of  St.  Louis,  and  the  consti- 
tutions of  the  Italian  republics.  It  was  to  influence 
all  the  great  political  movements  of  the  time,  to  pene- 
trate the  universities,  to  be  found  in  the  painter's  studio 
and  in  the  poet's  song,  and,  further  still,  to  open  the 
fields  of  ocean,  pregnant  with  stormy  peril,  to  the 
genius  of  Christopher  Columbus,  who,  in  obedience  to 
his  own  interpretation  of  a  Scripture  text,  set  foot  on 
his  ship  to  find  another  road  for  a  new  Crusade  which 
might  release  the  Sepulchre  of  Christ,  rendered  up,  to 
his  despair,  to  Moslem  oppression. 

The  logical  principle  of  every  great  achievement  of 
that  period  was  faith,  the  desire  for  belief,  and  the 
power  man  finds  in  himself  when  he  believes  ;  for,  as 
it  is  only  on  the  condition  of  faith  that  manldnd  can 
attain  to  love,  the  power  of  theology  lies  in  its  being 
the  native  principle  of  both  faith  and  love.  For  man- 
kind only  loves  what  it  takes  on  trust,  not  what  it  can 
easily  compass  ;  the  not  understanding  a  thing  is  the 
condition  of  loving  it  ;  and  whatever  is  capable  of 
mathematical  demonstration  gives  little  warmth  to  the 
heart.  Who  has  ever  been  in  love  with  an  axiom,  with 
a  truth  which  leaves  no  need  of  further  search  ?  The 
unknown  is  the  most  powerful  constituent  of  love,  for 
nothing  fascinates  the  human  mind  like  mystery,  and, 
on  the  contrary,  we  soon  weary  of  what  we  compre- 
hend. How  many  illustrious  men  of  letters  or  of 
science  have  finished  a  long  life  of  toil  in  Aveariness  at 
all  they  knew,  and  have  acted  like  Newton,  who,  dis- 
gusted with  mathematics,  forced  himself  to  expound 
the  Apocalypse,  attracted  by  speculations  on  that  which 
was  indemonstrable  ?  Mystery  is  the  secret  of  love, 
and  in  love  there  is  faith.     We  need  not  wonder  at  the 


I 


264  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

great  works  of  the  Middle  Age,  when  we  see  how  it 
believed,  still  less  when  we  see  how  it  loved.  It  was 
the  power  which  inspired  St.  Francis  of  Assisi,  and 
all  those  generations  of  devoted  men  to  whom  no  cost 
was  too  dear  to  bring  another  soul  to  the  threshold  of 
truth.  It  was  in  its  faith  and  its  love  that  the  Middle 
Age  found  its  strength,  and  therefore  our  treatise  on 
the  theology  which  produced  them  has  been  long.  St. 
Anselm  has  spoken  of  Faith  seeking  understanding, 
Fides  quœrens  intellectum,  and  in  the  words  of  St. 
Augustine,  Intellectum  valde  ama* 

*  St.  Aug.  Epist.  cxx.  ad  Consentium. 


265 


CHAPTEK  X. 

CHRISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY    (sT.    AUGUSTINE). 

We  have  seen  amidst  the  ruins  of  the  fourth  and  fifth 
centuries  theology  arising  as  a  new  power,  unknown  to 
antiquity,  but  destined  to  dominate  the  Middle  Age. 
Antiquity  had  possessed  learned  priesthoods,  and  had 
made  attempts  at  bringing  its  religious  traditions  to 
order  and  light,  but  had  no  true  theology  in  the  sense 
of  a  science  founded  uj^on  a  serious  alliance  of  reason 
and  faith,  because  in  Paganism  there  was  no  faith  and 
but  little  reason.  These  two  principles,  on  the  other 
hand,  were  of  the  very  essence  of  Christianity  ;  faith 
had  given  it  three  centuries  full  of  martyrs,  and  reason, 
applied  to  the  understanding  of  dogma,  had  given  it  the 
Fathers.  We  have  also  seen  what  a  degree  of  rectitude, 
perseverance,  and  toil  was  necessary  to  maintain  the 
dogmatic  deposit  free  from  the  two  perils  of  a  return 
to  heathenism  with  the  Gnostics  and  Manichees,  or  of 
losing  itself  in  philosophy  under  the  guidance  of  Arius 
and  Pelagius. 

And  these  questions  had  a  right  to  occupy  us  in  spite 
of  their  difficulty,  for  the  fifth  century  was  labouring 
far  less  for  itself  than  for  the  ages  to  come,  thereby 
manifesting  the  admirable  economy  in  the  laws  of  Pro- 
vidence, which  causes  nothing  to  be  lost  to  the  Christian 
family,  but  that  each  generation  should  show  itself  bent 

VOL.  I.  12 


266  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

under  the  burden  and  heat  of  its  own  day,  and  weighed 
down  also  by  that  of  its  successors.  Arianism  did  not 
perish  at  Nicasa  or  at  Constantinople.  Banished  from 
the  Koman  Empire,  it  took  refuge  with  and  made  rapid 
progress  amongst  the  barbarians,  to  return  again  with 
the  clouds  of  Goths,  Alani,  Suevi,  and  Vandals,  which, 
in  the  course  of  another  century,  were  to  break  over 
the  Empire,  and  to  become  dominant  in  Italy,  in 
Southern  Gaul,  in  Spain,  and  on  the  shores  of  Africa. 
The  greatest  of  the  Arian  princes,  Theodoric,  seemed  as 
if  raised  up  for  the  purpose  of  founding  a  new  empire 
with  an  Arian  civilization,  which,  however,  was  soon 
destined  to  fall  before  the  breath  of  Providence. 
Behind  these  Arians  were  others,  the  Moslems, 
possessing  a  newer  edition  of  the  same  error — the 
unity  of  God,  and  Christ  considered  as  a  prophet, 
under  which  novel  appearance  the  heresy  was  to  cover 
the  East,  and  even  the  West,  till  its  recoil  before  the 
little  kingdom  of  the  Franks,  founded  by  bishops  and 
built  upon  theology,  before  the  theologian  monarch  who 
called  himself  Charles  the  Great,  and  before  the  age 
which  left  upon  the  whole  of  Christendom  so  deep  an 
impress. 

Neither  had  Manichfeism  irretrievably  disappeared, 
though  hurled  back  by  the  puissant  eloquence  of  St. 
Augustine  to  the  boundaries  of  the  Eastern  Empire 
and  Persia,  and  into  the  mountains  of  Armenia.  It 
was  there  that  Petrus  Siculus,  a  Sicilian  bishop,  and 
envoy  of  the  Greek  emperors,  found  in  the  ninth 
century  a  powerful  sect,  possessed  of  a  perfect  hierarchy 
and  organization,  and  which  sought  to  propagate  itself 
under  the  name  of  Bogomites,  or  as  Paulicians  in 
Bulgaria.      It  was  Manicliœism  again  which  reappeared 


CHEISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY — ST.    AUGUSTINE.  267 

during   the   eleventh   century  in    France,   Italy,    and 
Germany,  in  the  errors  of  the   Cathari,   Patariui,  and 
Albigenses,  and  suddenly  enveloping,  as  in  a  net,  the 
greater  part  of  Southern  Christendom,  threatened  the 
Catholic  civilization  with  the  gravest  perils.     At  the 
rumour   of    these  heresies,    which    alike    denied     the 
Christian's  God  and  attacked  the  principles  of  property 
and  the  family,  and  consequently  the  very  elements  of 
society,  Europe  roused  herself  and  chivalry  grasped  the 
sword  ;   and  though  we  must  ever  deplore  the  excesses 
and  horrors  of  the  Albigensian  crusades,  yet  the  smoke 
of  their  conflagrations  must  not  conceal  the  truth,  that 
if    the    victory   won  by   the  sword    was  tarnished  by 
cruelty,  the  triumph  of  thought  and  reason  leaves  no 
room  for  regi-et.     From  that  furious  struggle  proceeded 
all  the  great  theologians,  in  whom   the   age   was  so 
wealthy — St.  Thomas  Aquinas,  St.  Bonaventura,  and 
Italy's  great  poet,  Dante;  and  from  their  theology,  which 
had  profoundly  agitated  the  human  mind  and  fertilized 
its  thought,  had  penetrated  during  the  long  gestation 
of   the    fourteenth   century,  in    the   mid-chaos  of   its 
stormy  years  to  the  last  ranks  of  Christian  civilization, 
went  forth  the  marvels  of  the  sixteenth   century,  its 
grand  expansion  of  human  genius,  which,  in  less  than 
a  hundred  years,  discovered    printing,    sounded   with 
Copernicus  the  secrets  of  heaven,  and  brought  to  light 
with  Columbus   a  moiety  of  the  world  ;  all  long  before 
the    appearance   of  the  man  to  whom   the  honour  of 
having  aroused  the  human  intellect  has  been  awarded 
— Luther,  the  German  monk.     Theology,  then,  was  the 
soul  of  the  Middle  Age,  and  in  looking  upon  the  work- 
ing of  all  the  great  thoughts  which  gave  birth  to   the 
crusades,  to  chivalry,  and  the  great  movements  which 

12  * 


268  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

carried  away  our  forefathers,  we  must  confess  that, 
amidst  the  general  confusion,  it  was  the  only  influence 
that  made  its  impulse  felt.     Mens  agitât  molcm. 

Theology  descends  from  faith  to  reason,  and  philo- 
sophy ascends  from  reason  to  faith.  This  return  of  the 
soul  towards  truths  which  it  has  perceived  from  afar 
under  mysterious  shadows,  only  to  desire  their  con- 
templation anew,  and  face  to  face,  is  an  irresistihle  and 
imperishahle  want  in  human  nature.  And  what  re- 
ligion, true  or  false,  has  not  given  faith  a  philosophy 
to  confirm  it  or  to  contradict  ?  Those  two  great  verities, 
God  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  at  once  supremely 
attractive  and  supremely  terrible,  have  never  ceased  to 
pursue  humanity,  and  to  strive  by  one  way  or  another 
to  come  under  its  cognizance.  But  every  time  philo- 
sophy has  pointed  out  two  ways  towards  grasping  the 
ideas  by  whose  aspect  it  has  been  attracted,  one  way  by 
the  laborious  reasoning  process,  which  is  continually 
pausing  to  consider  the  steps  it  has  made,  the  metho- 
dical reasoning  of  logic,  the  science  of  binding  ideas 
together,  as  if  to  mount  to  the  seat  of  the  Deity  by 
piling  Ossa  upon  Pelion;  but  these  mountains  are 
heavy  to  raise,  dialectic  is  no  moderate  efl"ort  for  the 
human  mind,  and  its  ambitious  edifice  often  falls 
before  it  has  been  half  constructed.  And,  therefore, 
man  turns  to  the  other  path,  and  perceiving  that  now 
and  then  unsought  truth  has  beamed  in  upon  him, 
that  inspiration  has  its  instincts  and  contemplation  its 
lights,*  demands  wherefore  they  are  not  his,  and  so  he 
seeks  another  method  in  the  eff"ort  of  will,  in  the  puri- 
fication of  the  heart,  in  the  interior  labour  of  love  ;  in 
short,  he  puts  his  confidence  in  morality  instead  of  in 
logic,  and  thinks  that  in  making  himself  more  worthy 


CHRISTIAN   PHILOSOPHY ST.    AUGUSTINE.  269 

of  God  lie  may  arrive  at  the  contemplation  of  Him. 
These  two  methods,  then,  the  former  proceeding  from 
logical  reason,  the  latter  from  morality  and  contem- 
plative love,  have  constituted  the  two  philosophies  of 
dogmatism  and  mysticism. 

It  is  not  our  task  to  remount  to  the  origin  of  mys- 
ticism, nor  to  point  to  the  highest  antiquity  of  India, 
to  those  motionless  contemplators  who  lived  whole 
lives  on  the  point  whereon  their  resting-place  had  first 
been  fixed,  forbade  themselves  any  movement,  and 
with  eyes  strained  forward,  gave  themselves  up  to  the 
last  degree  of  privation  and  mortification,  in  order  to 
conjure  their  Deity  to  descend  upon  them  ;  neither 
those  speculative  philosophers  who,  in  expounding  the 
text  of  the  Vedas,  drew  in  imagination  from  them  many 
systems  to  elucidate  the  revelation  which  they  sup- 
posed had  been  confided  to  their  charge.  We  may 
leave  this  too  remote  antiquity,  and  pause  at  the  same 
efforts  appearing  in  Greece,  whose  mystics,  with  Pytha- 
goras, made  wisdom  consist  in  abstinence  and  con- 
tinence, and  which,  in  the  persons  of  Thaïes,  the 
sophists,  and  half  the  school  of  Socrates,  contributed 
to  the  dogmatic  system.  We  may  be  content  with  the 
results  of  Greek  genius,  that  finest  shoot  of  the 
human  mind,  and  ask  what  conclusion  its  mightiest 
intellects,  Aristotle  and  Plato,  arrived  at  on  the 
weightiest  problem  of  the  reason,  the  knowledge  of 
God. 

Plato,  indeed,  pushed  the  knowledge  of  God  farther 
than  any  other  sage  of  antiquity.  He  conceived  of 
God  as  the  Idea  of  Good,  from  whom  all  beings  receive 
their  intelligence,  and  by  whom  they  exist;  his  God 
was  good,  and  by  his  bounty  had  produced  the  world, 


270  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

not  out  of  nothing,  but  from  previously  existent  matter, 
which  he  drew  from  the  chaos  in  which  it  was  labour- 
ing, and  which  he  was  ever  opposing  as  the  rebellious 
principle  by  which  his  works  are  modified,  corrupted, 
and  spoilt.  The  God  of  Plato  was  a  great  conception, 
but  he  was  not  a  free  agent  nor  a  sole  existence,  but 
living  eternally  side  by  side  with  undisciplined  matter, 
and,  conquered  in  his  efforts  by  its  resistance,  was  but 
half  master,  and  though  great  and  good,  if  not  free 
and  sole,  was  not  God. 

Aristotle,  on  the  other  hand,  in  the  fourteen  books 
of  his  "  Metaphysics,"  put  forth  his  utmost  efforts  to 
surpass  Plato,  and  brought  together  the  mightiest 
scientific  apparatus  that  human  hand  has  ever  moved. 
Yet  the  man  who  knew  the  history  of  all  animals,  who 
had  laid  a  basis  for  a  republic,  studied  the  laws  of  the 
human  mind,  and  classed  thought  in  categories,  felt 
at  last  the  necessity  of  recapitulating  all  his  toil  ;  he 
stretched  his  hands  to  right  and  left,  and  reassembled 
the  knowledge  which  he  had  gained  in  the  study  of 
the  universe  in  its  totality,  and  from  the  most  pro- 
found notions  as  to  substance  and  accident,  poten- 
tiality and  action,  movement  and  privation,  hewed 
steps,  as  it  were,  on  the  summit  of  which,  breathless 
and  panting  from  the  immense  labour  to  which  he  had 
condemned  himself,  he  believed  at  last  he  had  reached 
God.  He  proclaimed  him  as  a  First  Motor,  necessary 
and  eternal,  of  a  world  as  eternal  as  himself,  as 
guiding  the  universe  without  volition  and  without  love, 
submitted  with  a  capacity  of  directing  it  to  a  kind  of 
physical  attraction.  He  was  powerful  and  intelligent, 
and  found  his  pleasure  in  self-contemplation  ;  but  as 
he  was  not  good,   did   not   love  his  works,   but  only 


CHRISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY — ST.    AUGUSTINE.  271 

himself,  was  still  more  imperfect  than  the  God  of 
Plato. 

Such  were  the  results  obtained  by  the  human  in- 
tellect, aided  by  the  light  thrown  upon  it  during  ages 
of  infinite  laboriousness,  and  by  the  immense  advan- 
tages afforded  in  the  congenial  and  brilliant  epochs  of 
Pericles  and  Alexander.  Epicurus  and  Zeno  followed, 
the  former  with  his  system  of  atoms,  the  latter  making 
God  a  corporeal  substance — a  great  animal,  as  it  were  ; 
and  then  Pyrrho,  with  his  universal  scepticism,  which 
Cicero  struggled  against  in  vain,  by  surrounding  with 
the  brightest  lustre  those  two  fundamental  verities  of 
all  true  doctrine — the  existence  of  God  and  the  soul's 
immortality.  In  vain,  for,  tainted  himself  by  scep- 
ticism, he  ended  by  finding  the  former  a  mere  proba- 
bility, and  the  latter  eminently  desirable  for  men  of 
worth.  And  this  was  the  issue  of  philosophy  at  the 
dawn  of  Christianity. 

Christianity  appeared  to  refresh  the  forces  of  the 
human  mind,  in  giving  it  that  certitude  without  which 
its  action  is  paralyzed  ;  for  that  which  has  been  hurled 
as  a  chief  objection  against  Christian  philosophy  con- 
stituted in  fact  its  strength,  its  novelty,  and  its  merit. 
It  has  been  constantly  said  that  the  Church  only  suffers 
a  verification  of  dogma  already  pronounced  certain, 
that  she  fixes  the  goal,  and  leaves  only  the  road  to  it 
open  to  search.  Yet  surely  no  great  minds,  no  deep 
thinkers,  have  entered  upon  the  ways  of  science  but 
with  a  firm  and  settled  idea  as  to  their  end  ;  the 
human  intellect  only  resigns  itself  to  the  formidable 
task  of  philosophic  reasoning  on  condition  of  seeing 
their  result  in  the  distance.  When  Descartes  went  on 
his  pilgrimage  to  Our  Lady  of  Loretto  as  a  Catholic 


272  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

pilgrim,  he  had  a  fixed  determination  of  arriving  at  the 
proof  of  the  existence  of  God  and  the  immortahty  of 
the  soul.  It  is  in  a  settled  certainty  as  to  its  aim  that 
genius  finds  its  power.  Kepler's  dying  speech  was  that 
he  knew  that  his  calculations  were  inexact,  hut  that,  by 
God's  help,  sooner  or  later,  some  one  would  come 
forward  to  correct  their  errors,  and  prove  the  truth  of 
the  conclusions.  This  was  true  genius,  science,  and 
philosophy — the  light  destined  to  guide  the  intellect  of 
mankind  for  the  future.  Christianity  brought  cer- 
tainty to  it,  and  to  the  gift  added  the  liberty  of 
choosing  among  the  different  paths  which  led  there, 
and  freeing  human  thought  from  mystic  or  dogmatic 
schools,  spoke  at  once  to  the  mind  and  to  the  heart, 
and  imposed  upon  man  the  duty  of  arriving,  by  aid  of 
his  faculties  and  feelings,  at  a  supremely  lovable  and 
supremely  intelligible  notion  of  God  Himself.  In  this 
lay  the  novelty  of  the  Christian  eclecticism,  and  the 
road  was  followed  by  the  Fathers  of  the  Church  in 
succession  ;  but  as  the  majority  of  those  great  minds, 
being  involved  in  pressing  polemical  struggles,  had  no 
leisure  to  summarize  and  reduce  into  philosophical 
form  the  issues  of  their  thought,  that  labour  was 
reserved  for  St.  Augustine,  as  being  one  out  of  the 
three  or  four  great  metaphysicians  assigned  by  the 
Almighty  to  modern  times  ;  it  was  his  task  to  clear 
the  two  roads  open  to  Christian  philosophy,  and  to 
inaugurate  its  two  methods  of  mysticism  and  dog- 
matism. 

No  soul  had  ever  been  more  troubled  with  an  in- 
satiable love  for  truth  which  could  not  be  seen — a 
feeling  happily  described  as  a  heavenly  home-sickness, 
a  deep  craving  for  the  eternal  fatherland  whence  man 


CHEISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY ST.    AUGUSTINE.  273 

came  and  whither  he  is  tending.  No  soul,  on  the 
other  hand,  ever  seemed  thrown  upon  this  world  at  a 
greater  distance  from  its  God.  He  was  born  on  that 
African  coast,  already  given  up  to  the  last  state  of  dis- 
order, which  required  nothing  less  than  the  Vandal 
torrent  to  cleanse  the  impurity  in  which  it  was  steeped. 
His  father  was  not  Christian,  and,  greater  danger  still, 
designed  his  son,  not  only  for  the  study  but  the  pro- 
fession of  the  corrupt  literature  of  the  Decline  ;  to  hire 
out  his  eloquence,  and  teach  the  art  of  lying  on  lucra- 
tive terms. 

Amidst  the  traffic  in  rhetoric  of  the  schools  of 
Madaura  and  Carthage,  the  young  Augustine  began 
to  grow  skilled  in  tricks  of  speech,  in  the  dangerous 
art  which  holds  thought  cheap  and  seeks  an  empty 
pleasure  for  the  ear.  His  fellow-pupils,  the  students 
of  Carthage,  had  earned,  from  their  wild  reputation,  the 
nickname  of  eversores  (ravagers),  and,  according  to 
the  Saint  himself,  were  in  the  habit  of  attending  the 
lectures  of  some  favourite  master  through  door  or 
window,  breaking  everything  in  their  way.  We  can 
judge  of  the  peril  Augustine  encountered  among  such 
wild  freaks,  and  his  "Confessions"  show  us,  in  fact,  that 
he  resisted  none  of  the  temptations  by  which  early  youth 
is  generally  assailed.  But  God  had  given  him  a  rest- 
less heart,  which  could  find  no  repose  but  in  Him,  and 
the  secret  disturbance  of  a  soul  which  aspired  to  purity 
revealed  itself  in  the  very  midst  of  its  pollutions. 
When  a  mere  child,  he  used  to  pray  to  God  that  his 
masters  might  not  flog  him,  and  later,  when  it  seemed 
as  if  every  remembrance  of  Him  must  have  been 
banished  in  those  nights  of  wild  debauchery,  the  idea 
was  still  present,  though  unrecognized.     His  strong 

12  f 


274  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

admiration  of  the  beautiful  began  to  reveal  his  literary 
vocation  ;  it  drew  tears  from  him  on  reading  of  the 
woes  of  Dido,  and  took  him  as  a  spectator,  not  so  much 
to  the  games  of  the  circus  as  to  the  representations  of 
the  theatre,  and  especially  to  those  tragedies  which 
placed  beneath  his  eyes  the  heroic  misery  of  the  great 
ones  of  antiquity.  It  pursued  him  as  an  insatiable 
passion  into  the  pulpit  of  the  rhetorician,  and  caused 
him  constantly  to  ask  his  friends,  "  Qmdamamus,  nisi 
pulchrum  ?  Quid  est  pulclirum  ?  "  whilst  his  first 
literary  labour  consisted  of  three  volumes  on  Beauty. 

But  Goodness  attracted  him  as  well  as  Beauty  ; 
friendship,  the  communion  of  soul  with  soul,  showed 
itself  with  great  force  in  his  breast  when,  on  the  loss  of 
a  beloved  fellow-pupil,  he  bewailed  him  with  an  agony 
which  nothing  could  console.  "  My  eyes  looked  for 
him  in  every  place,  but  no  place  gave  him  back  to  me, 
and  I  loathed  everything,  because  nothing  could  show 
me  him,  nor  say,  '  Behold,  he  is  just  coming,'  as  when 
he  lived  and  was  absent  from  me.  I  bore  then  within 
me  a  torn  and  bleeding  heart,  which  hardly  suffered  me 
to  bear  it,  and  yet  I  knew  not  where  to  lay  it  down,  for 
it  would  not  repose  in  charming  thickets,  nor  in  the 
country  with  its  sports,  nor  in  perfumed  chambers, 
banquets,  or  voluptuous  delights,  neither  in  books  nor 
in  poetry."*  Such  was  the  affection  of  St.  Augustine; 
and  if  he  could  thus  love  a  friend,  what  must  have  been 
the  nature  of  those  other  passions  of  his  heart  ?  for 
amidst  the  horror  with  which  the  wild  disorder  of  his 
youth  inspired  him,  mark  that  he  maintains  that  his 
soul  plunged  into  unlawful  love  because  it  was  famish- 
ing for  some  love,  and  divine  nourishment  had  been 
*  Confess,  lib.  iv.  cap.  iv. 


CHRISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY — ST.    AUGUSTINE.  275 

withdrawn  from  it.  At  nineteen,  the  "  Hortensius  "  of 
Cicero  fell  into  his  hands,  caused  him  a  disgust  for 
fortune,  and  made  him  to  swear  to  love  nothing  thence- 
forth but  the  Eternal  Wisdom  ;  "  for  already,"  he  says, 
"  I  was  aiming  to  return,  0  my  God,  to  Thee."*  But 
he  was  but  half  satisfied  with  "  Hortensius,"  and 
troubled  at  not  finding  therein  the  name  of  Christ — a 
word  which,  with  its  sweet  and  tender  influence,  had 
remained  rooted  in  the  depths  of  his  heart. 

The  Mauichaeans  spoke  of  Christ,  and  that  drew  his 
mind  towards  them,  as,  tormented  by  the  thought  of 
God,  he  asked  himself  ceaselessly,  "What  is  evil? 
from  whom  does  it  proceed  ?"  A  sect  which  promised 
an  explanation  of  the  problem  could  not  fail  to  fascinate 
him.  The  Manichaeans  brought  him  up  to  the  point 
of  admitting,  with  them,  a  corporeal  God  and  a 
corporeal  soul  ;  no  notion  of  things  spiritual  entered 
his  intellect;  be  believed  that  Christ  resided  between 
the  sun  and  the  moon  ;  that  He  had  taken  only  a 
fantastic  body  ;  that  primitive  man  had  been  broken 
in  pieces  by  the  spirit  of  darkness  ;  that  plants  exhaled 
in  their  perfumes  different  particles  of  the  soul  of  the 
World,  and  the  fig  plucked  from  the  tree  shed  tears  of 
pain.  All  this  St.  Augustine  believed,  rather  than 
nothing,  so  deeply  did  his  soul  crave  for  sacrifice  and 
for  entire  self-devotion.  But  the  Manichœans  them- 
selves at  last  wearied  him  by  the  demands  they  in- 
sisted on  from  his  lofty  reason,  and  the  works  of  the 
Neoplatonists  having,  at  the  same  time,  come  in  his 
way,  he  again  found  a  philosophy  which  told  of  God  as 
the  Author  of  good.  He  gave  himself  up  by  preference 
to  their  guidance,  and  under  it  began  to  conceive  of 

*  Confess,  lib.  iii.  cap.  iv. 


276  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

God  otlierwise  than  under  corporeal  forms,  as  a  hal- 
lowed, invisible,  impalpable  Light  ;  and  yet  these 
notions  had  difficulty  in  penetrating  his  still  hesitating 
mind.  "And  I  said,  '  Has  Truth,  then,  not  existence, 
seeing  it  not  spread  over  finite  nor  over  infinite  space  ?  ' 
and  Thou  didst  cry  to  me  from  afar,  '  I  exist,  I  am  that 
which  is  ;  '  and  I  understood  in  my  very  heart,  and  I 
could  no  longer  doubt  more  of  Thy  Truth  than  of  my 
life!"* 

But  at  the  moment  of  this  revolution  in  his  soul,  St. 
Augustine  left  Carthage,  a. d.  383,  and  set  sail  for  Rome, 
leaving  his  mother  kneeling  on  the  shore  as  the  scud- 
ding ship  bore  far  away  that  diild  of  so  many  tears. 
At  Rome,  the  prefect  of  the  city,  who  had  been  asked 
for  a  professor  of  rhetoric  for  Milan,  where  the  court 
was  then  residing,  summoned  the  young  African, 
whose  fame  had  reached  him,  to  his  presence,  heard 
him,  and  entrusted  him  with  the  appointment.  The 
man  who  played  the  part  of  protector  and  Maecaenas 
to  St.  Augustine  was,  by  strange  fatality,  the  pagan 
Symmachus.  Arrived  at  Milan,  St.  Augustine  saw 
St.  Ambrose,  heard  him  with  admiration,  and  went 
again  to  listen  to  him  at  the  Church.  At  other  times 
he  went  to  behold  him  working,  reading,  compiling 
manuscripts,  writing  in  his  house,  which  was  open  to 
all,  and  constantly  thronged  by  the  curious,  though 
Ambrose  never  raised  his  eyes,  except  on  some  demand 
of  charity.  •  Augustine  saw  him  in  meditation,  and 
went  out  again  in  silence.*  He  had  his  mother  also 
at  his  side,  for  she,  counting  always  upon  his  conversion, 
had  not  feared  to  cross  the  sea  to  rejoin  him,  reassured, 
too,  by  the  speech  of  a  bishop  to  her  :  "It  is  impos- 
*  Confess,  lib.  yi.  cap.  iii. 


CHRISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY ST.    AUGUSTINE.  277 

sible  but  that  your  child  of  many  tears  should  be 
restored  to  you."  His  friends  were  with  him  ;  his 
pupils,  who  had  followed  him  from  Africa,  unable  to 
detach  themselves  from  their  beloved  master,  and  in 
their  midst  his  soul  began  to  seek  for  the  calmness  and 
repose  of  a  better  regulated  life.  They  discussed  toge- 
ther the  formation  of  a  philosophical  community,  which 
had  been  the  dream  of  so  many  philosophers,  and  which 
Pythagoras  had  attempted  ;  but  their  difficulty  lay  in 
the  admission  of  women,  for  Augustine  had  not  resolved 
on  tearing  himself  from  the  pleasures  of  his  youth,  and 
his  old  lusts  still  kept  their  grasp  on  "his  garment  of 
flesh."  When  in  this  condition,  he  learnt  the  story  of 
Victorinus,  who  had  left  everj-thing  at  the  summit  of 
his  fame,  and  ripe  in  age,  to  follow  Christ;  and  was 
captivated  by  that  other  history  of  the  two  imperial 
officers,  who,  whilst  walking  in  the  suburbs  of  Treves, 
had  entered  a  monastery,  and  struck  with  admiration  at 
their  life,  had  decided  to  abandon  everything  to  live  in 
perfection  with  its  inmates.  All  these  stories  troubled 
the  mind  of  St.  Augustine,  and  drew  him  on  insensibly 
towards  Christianity,  which  St.  Ambrose  had  lately 
taught  him,  and  whose  marv^els  excelled  so  infinitely 
those  related  by  Plato  and  his  disciples.  At  the  con- 
clusion of  the  conversation,  in  the  course  of  which  the 
account  of  the  two  officers  had  been  related  to  him,  he 
felt  that  decisive  blow  of  which  he  has  left  us  so  vi\'id  a 
picture.  We  must  give  it  here,  in  remembrance  of  that 
memorable  day  at  the  close  of  August,  386,  in  which 
this  great  soul  was  snatched  from  its  errors,  and 
thrown  at  the  feet  of  the  Truth,  into  the  bosom  of  that 
doctrine  which  henceforth  he  was  so  gloriously  to 
serve. 


278  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

"I  advanced  into  the  garden,  and  Alypius  followed 
me  step  by  step.  I  could  not  feel  alone  with  myself  as 
long  as  he  was  with  me,  and  how  could  he  desert  me 
in  the  trouble  in  which  he  beheld  me.  We  sat  down 
at  the  farthest  spot  from  the  house,  and  I  shuddered  in 
my  very  soul  with  ardent  indignation  at  my  tardiness  in 
flying  to  that  new  life  to  which  I  had  agreed  with  God,  and 

into  which  my  whole  being  cried  out  to  me  to  enter 

I  flung  myself  on  the  ground,  why,  I  know  not,  under 
a  fig-tree,  and  gave  free  course  to  my  tears,  which 
gushed  forth  in  streams,  as  an  ofl'ering  agreeable  to 
Thee,  0  my  God.  And  I  spoke  thousands  of  things  to 
Thee,  not  in  these  words,  but  in  this  sense  :  '  0  Lord, 
how  long  wilt  Thou  be  angry  with  me  ?  Kemember  no 
more  my  old  iniquities,'  for  I  felt  that  they  held  me 
still.  I  let  these  pitiable  words  escape  me  :  '  When  ? 
On  what  day  ?  To-morrow  ?  The  day  after  ?  Why 
not  yet  ?  Why  is  not  this  very  hour  the  last  of  my 
shame  ?  '  So  did  I  speak  to  Thee,  and  wept  bitterly  in 
the  contrition  of  my  heart,  when,  behold,  I  heard  pro- 
ceeding from  a  house  a  voice  like  that  of  a  child,  or  a 
young  girl,  which  sang  and  repeated  as  a  burden,  these 
words,  '  Take  up,  and  read  !  take  up,  and  read  !  ' 

*'  Then  I  returned  with  hurried  steps  to  the  place 
where  Alypius  was  sitting,  for  I  had  left  the  book  of 
the  Apostle  there  on  rising  from  my  seat.  I  took  it, 
and  opened  and  read  silently  the  first  chapter  on  which 
my  eyes  fell  :  '  Live  not  in  rioting  and  drunkenness, 
not  in  chambering  and  impurities,  not  in  contention 
and  envy  ;  but  put  ye  on  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and 
make  not  provision  for  the  flesh  in  its  concupiscences.  * 
I  would  read  no  farther,  nor  was  there  need  for  it,  for 
*  Rom.  xiii.  13,  14. 


CHRISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY ST.    AUGUSTINE.  279 

instantly,  as  I  grasped  the  tliouglit,  a  light  of  certainty 
spread  over  my  soul,  and  the  mists  of  doubt  vanished. 
Then  I  marked  the  passage  with  my  finger  or  some 
other  sign,  shut  the  book,  and  gave  it  to  Alypius  to 
read." 

All  the  darkness  was,  indeed,  dispelled,  and  from 
that  day  Augustine  was  in  possession  of  the  God  whom 
he  had  so  long  pursued,  who  had  sought  him,  too,  and 
at  last  had  gained  him.  So  perfect  was  the  com- 
munion, so  real  the  contemplation,  that  in  that  other 
famous  moment  of  which  he  leaves  us  the  history, 
in  his  intercourse  with  his  mother,  we  feel  that  he 
reached  the  farthest  point  open  to  mortal  man  in 
relation  with  God. 

A  short  time  after  this  day  of  his  conversion,  when 
Monica  was  on  the  point  of  giving  back  her  soul  to 
God,  though  the  approach  of  that  hour  was  not  yet 
known,  both  mother  and  son  were  at  Ostia,  preparing 
to  embark  on  the  vessel  which  was  to  bear  them  back 
to  Africa.  As  one  evening  the  two  were  leaning  on 
a  window  in  contemplation  of  the  sky,  they  fell  to 
talking  of  the  hopes  of  immortality,  and  then,  said 
St.  Augustine,  having  traversed  the  whole  order  of 
things  visible,  and  considered  every  creature  which 
bore  witness  to  God,  far  above  stars  and  sun  they 
reached  the  region  of  the  soul,  and  there  found  their 
aspirations  were  not  satisfied,  and  so  they  turned  to 
the  Eternal  and  Creative  Wisdom  ;  and  whilst  we 
spoke  thus,  continues  the  Saint,  we  seemed  to  touch 
It  ;  and,  in  conclusion,  he  declares  that  had  that 
moment's  contemplation  lasted  for  eternity,  it  would 
have  sufficed,  and  far  more  than  sufficed,  for  his  ever- 
lasting happiness. 


280  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Thus  did  St.  Augustine,  by  the  way  of  purification, 
of  illumination,  of  contemplation,  reach  the  true  idea  of 
God,  and  in  this  sense  his  "  Confessions"  become  a  grand 
work  of  mystic  philosophy  ;  and  that  he  thus  considered 
them  himself  is  evidenced  by  the  concluding  address  : 
"  And  what  man  can  cause  man,  what  angel  his  fellow- 
angel,  what  angel  can  cause  man  to  understand  these 
things  ?  It  is  Thou  "Whom  we  must  ask,  0  God  !  Thou 
Whom  we  must  seek,  at  Whom  we  must  knock,  and  it 
is  then  only  tliat  we  shall  find,  shall  receive,  and  be 
opened  to.  Amen."  To  him  these  "  Confessions"  were 
nothing  else  than  a  mystic  method  of  reaching  God, 
and  in  them  we  find  every  characteristic  of  mysticism, 
and  especially  asceticism,  the  eifort  to  create  a  moral 
and  not  a  logical  method  of  purifying  self,  and  so  render- 
ing it  worthy  of  an  approach  to  God,  to  which  end 
alone  the  long  struggle  against  passion  must  ever  tend  ; 
the  careful  cleansing  of  the  intellect,  in  banishing  every 
error  which  had  crept  in,  whether  Pagan,  Manichsean, 
or  Neoplatonic  ;  and,  lastly,  the  raptures  of  a  heart  hence- 
forth free  in  its  aspirations  towards  the  Eternal  One, 
and  able  to  enter  into  closest  communion  with  Him. 
These  are  the  three  degrees  and  phases  through  which 
great  mystics  make  every  soul  pass  which  is  under  their 
guidance — the  life  of  purgation,  the  life  of  illumination, 
the  life  of  union.  And,  again,  it  contains  another  force  ; 
the  soul,  no  longer  given  over  to  itself,  as  when  a 
guidance  towards  reason  is  in  question,  for  love  cannot 
stand  alone,  but  must  have  a  proper  surrounding,  its 
philosophy  cannot  go  alone,  but  only  in  company,  so 
Augustine  was  accompanied  by  his  mother,  the  guardian 
angel  of  his  convictions,  and  one  of  their  living  and 
necessary  elements — the  soul,  as  it  were,  of  his  loving 


CHEISTIAN   PHILOSOPHY ST.    AUGUSTINE.  281 

and  inspiring  philosophy  ;  it  was  his  mother  who 
guided  and  stood  hy  him  from  his  dark  youth  to  his 
brilliant  maturity,  whilst  his  friends,  such  as  St. 
Ambrose,  or  the  Church  Universal,  greedy  of  his 
presence,  brought  him  on  to  the  threshold  of  truth. 

This  method,  then,  condemns  mankind  to  no  un- 
natural isolation,  it  appeals  to  nature  in  its  entirety, 
with  all  its  splendours,  errors,  and  illusions.  By  the 
aid  of  Beauty  St.  Augustine  returned  to  God  ;  the 
things  of  earth,  which  had  charmed  and  deceived  him, 
held  amidst  their  seductive  errors  a  true  reality,  making 
itself  felt  as  alone  capable  of  filling  his  heart.  At  last 
he  cleft  the  veil  and  found  the  deep  and  creative 
beauty  which  lay  hid  under  the  form  of  every  creature 
as  a  ray  from  the  Creator,  the  symbolism  which  is 
another  note  of  mysticism  seeking  in  natural  objects 
the  reflection  of  the  Deity  and  the  footprints  of  the 
Invisible.  Mysticism,  with  these  three  characteristics, 
is  the  same  in  every  time  ;  and  during  the  Middle 
Age  the  mystic  philosophy  of  St.  Augustine  blossomed 
into  that  of  Hugh  and  Eichard  of  St.  Victor,  of  St. 
Bonaventura,  and  the  other  great  masters  of  the 
Western  Church. 

But  the  fact  that  this  doctrine  has  its  dangers  was 
proved  in  the  case  of  St.  Augustine  himself,  and  was  to 
be  showTi  by  many  subsequent  instances.  Like  love, 
it  brooks  no  control,  and  will  be  responsible  to  no  one 
for  its  raptures  and  abandonments,  and  so  it  lies  open 
to  extravagance,  to  be  drawn  into  paths  in  which  the 
ties  of  its  wings  may  break,  and  its  aspirations  towards 
the  Sun  end  in  a  fall  into  the  abyss.  Control  is  essen- 
tial to  it,  and  so  Christianity  did  not  call  for  a  mystic 
philosophy  to  stand  alone  without  guide  or  rule,  but 


282  CIVILIZATION   IN   FIFTH   CENTURY. 

placed  at  its  side  a  dogmatic  system,  as  the  mysticism 
of  St.  Augustine  was  supported  by  his  dogmatism. 

In  the  earlier  portion  of  the  intellectual  history  of 
this  Saint,  it  was  God  who  was  pursuing  him  pitilessly 
in  the  doubt  of  his  mind  and  the  struggle  of  his  heart, 
as  well  as  through  the  deep  abasement  of  his  carnal 
nature  ;  and  though  he  could  fly  from  his  country  and  his 
mother,  he  could  not  escape  from  his  God,  Who  found 
him  at  Milan  in  that  garden  and  under  the  fig-tree, 
whither  we  have  followed  him  ;  but  when  He  had  once 
possessed  him,  it  was  St.  Augustine's  turn  to  follow 
after  his  God  :  ,he  found  Him,  indeed,  but  never  suffi- 
ciently— he  for  ever  was  wishing  to  enter  into  deeper 
enjoyment  of  His  perfection,  and  his  whole  philosophi- 
cal toil  lay  in  the  attempt  to  return  by  dint  of  Reason 
to  that  Being  whom  he  had  already  grasped  by  Love. 

At  the  moment  of  taking  the  great  resolution  of  an 
irrevocable  self-devotion  to  God,  he  had  also  determined 
to  quit  the  school  in  which  he  now  saw  a  mere  traffic  in 
vanity.  From  one  of  his  friends,  Verecundus,  he  had 
sought  and  found  in  his  beautiful  villa  of  Cassiciacum, 
at  some  distance  from  Milan,  the  reposeful  asylum  so 
necessary  after  the  struggle  through  which  he  had 
passed.  Though  out  of  health  and  with  an  afiected 
chest,  the  dauntless  activity  of  his  mind  forbade  repose. 
Surrounded  by  his  mother,  his  brother,  son,  and  other 
relations,  as  well  as  the  friends  who  had  followed  him, 
his  days  were  passed  now  in  reading  a  half-canto  of  the 
*'^neid,"  now  in  commenting  on  the  "Hortensius"  of 
Cicero,  to  which  he  used  to  refer  the  earliest  motions  of 
his  heart  towards  virtue,  now  in  talking  philosophy 
with  Trygetius,  Alypius,  Licentius,  and  others  ;  obscure 
enough,  indeed,  by  the  side  of  the  illustrious  interlocu- 


CHEISTIAN   PHILOSOPHY — ST.   AUGUSTINE.  283 

tors  in  the  "Dialogues  of  Cicero,"  but  touching  in  their 
obscurity  when  viewed  in  the  light  of  Christian  phi- 
losophy, which  counts  none  insignificant,  the  meanest 
becoming,  as  St.  Augustine  says,  gi-eat  when  occupied 
with  great  things.  One  day  his  mother  came  to  take 
part  in  these  discussions  ;  the  Saint  took  care  not  to 
repulse  her;  and  as  she  wondered  at  herself,  as  a 
woman,  being  thus  admitted  to  philosophize,  her  son 
gloried,  and  rightly,  in  the  idea.  These  conversations, 
preserved  by  stenography,  form  the  first  of  St.  Augus- 
tine's treatises  on  philosophy,  and  are  found  in  his 
books,  "  Contra  Academos,"  "  De  Ordine,"  "  De  Vita 
Beatâ,"  to  which  may  be  added  the  "Soliloquies,"  and 
the  works  "  De  Quantitate  Animœ,"  "  De  Immortalitate 
Animœ,"  "De  Libero  Arbitrio  ;"  and  though  no  single 
volume  amongst  these  furnishes  a  complete  system  of 
his  philosophy,  which  must  be  sought  for  throughout 
the  whole  of  his  writings,  this  is  due  to  the  manner  of 
composition  assumed  by  this  most  laborious  of  men, 
whose  time  was  disputed  between  an  infinite  variety  of 
occupations  ;  now  engrossed  in  settling  law-suits  and 
other  difficulties  between  the  worthy  people  of  Hippo, 
now  called  upon  to  direct  the  Church  in  her  gravest 
decisions  ;  and  amidst  such  calls  he  was  able  from 
time  to  time  to  devote  himself  to  some  discussions  on 
philosophy.  All  that  we  possess  from  him  has,  more- 
over, been  written  in  haste,  collected  by  reporters,  and 
hardly  ever  revised  by  its  author.  Treatises  were  com- 
menced by  him  and  never  finished,  and  in  others  the 
plan  adopted  at  the  outset  was  changed  in  the  sequel. 
But  yet,  beneath  apparent  disorder,  is  found  the  most 
powerful  internal  arrangement  ;  and  it  is  not  the  least 
satisfaction  to  the  mind  which  penetrates  into  the  heart 


284  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUKY. 

of  his  works,  to  discover  therein  the  strength  and  unity 
of  a  genius  ever  master  of  itself,  like  the  Christian 
faith  which  inspired  it,  marching  without  the  slightest 
deflection  in  the  straight  road  which  was  to  lead  it  to 
God. 

Moreover,  he  never  reached  the  point  of  despising 
philosophy  or  of  sacrificing  reason  to  faith.  Far  from 
it  ;  he  wrote  to  Eomanian  urging  him  to  emhrace  that 
system  into  the  bosom  of  which  he  had  plunged  his  own 
mind,  and  by  which  he  had  learnt  to  condemn  Pelagius 
and  throw  off  the  Manichœan  errors*  which  had  sus- 
tained him  through  his  researches,  and  promising  to 
show  him  God  had,  in  fact,  given  him  a  glimpse  of 
Him,  though  veiled  in  lustrous  mist.  Whilst  he  pointed 
to  the  weakness  of  the  old  philosophers,  he  gave  them 
credit  for  their  glory.  He  admired  the  chief  of  the 
Academy  ;  to  him  Plato's  approach  to  God  seemed  near  ; 
but  he  did  not  deny  the  impotence  of  the  essays  of  the 
human  mind.  He  declared  that  a  handful  of  men,  at  the 
expense  of  great  genius,  leisure,  and  toil,  had  grasped 
the  notion  of  God  and  of  the  soul's  immortality,  but  had 
found  truth  without  love  ;  they  had  perceived  the  goal, 
but  had  not  taken  the  path  which  alone  led  up  to  it, 
and  so  the  truth  they  held  was  imperfect. f  "  It  is  one 
thing  to  gaze  down  upon  the  land  of  peace,  as  from  the 
peak  of  a  mountain,  whose  sides  are  covered  with 
forests  haunted  with  wild  beasts  of  prey  and  fugitive 
slaves,  without  knowing  the  road  to  follow,  another  to 
be  upon  the  highway  traced  out  by  the  Supreme 
Master."  This  was  the  distinction  he  drew  between 
the  philosophy  of  antiquity  and  that  of  Christianity,  of 

*  Contra  Academos,  lib.  i.  cap.  ii. 
I  De  Vera  Reliijione,  initio. 


CHRISTIAN   PHILOSOPHY — ST,    AUGUSTINE.  285 

wliicli  lie  was  one  of  the  most  illustrious  representa- 
tives— the  necessary  union  of  reason  and  faith.  God 
Himself,  he  said,  cannot  despise  reason,  for  how  can 
He  despise  that  principle  which  distinguishes  man 
from  His  other  creatures  ?  Nor  does  He  desire  that 
we  should  seek  faith  that  we  may  cease  to  reason,  but, 
on  the  contrary,  that  the  possession  of  faith  should 
make  us  reason  more — should  give  it  stronger  and  more 
ample  j^inions,  for,  were  we  not  reasoning  creatures^ 
we  should  not  know  how  to  believe.  Eeason  precedes 
faith,  to  determine  where  authority  lies  ;  it  follows  it 
too,  for  when  the  intellect  has  reached  God,  it  seeks 
Him  still. 

St.  Augustine  was  far  from  wishing  to  discourage 
the  reason  by  dwelling  on  the  contradictions  of  the 
old  schools  of  philosophy,  and  rather  blamed  the  new 
Academy  for  seeking  refuge  in  a  state  of  doubt 
between  Epicurus  and  Zeno.  He  destroyed  its 
specially  adopted  doctrine  of  probability,  showing  the 
disciples  of  the  school  that,  in  speaking  of  probability, 
they  held  an  idea 'of  truth,  and  even  supposed  the  pre- 
sence of  what  they  denied  ;  and  in  order  to  refute  doubt, 
he  sought  for  certitude  in  thought  by  the  psychological 
method. 

"In  truth,"  he  said,  "those  who  doubt  cannot 
doubt  that  they  are  alive,  that  they  remember,  wish, 
think  ;  for,  if  they  doubt,  it  is  from  a  desire  for  certainty, 
and  so  they  refuse  to  consent  to  anything  without 
proof.  You,  then,  who  wish  to  know  3'ourself,  do  you 
know  if  you  exist  ?  I  do  know  it.  Whence?  I  am 
ignorant  whence.  Do  you  think  yourself  to  be  simple 
or  complex  ?  I  know  not.  Do  you  know  whether 
you  are  in  movement  ?     No.     Do  you  know  whether 


CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 


you  thinlî  ?  I  know  that  I  do.  Then  it  is  certain  that 
you  think."  * 

This  is,  in  fact,  the  Cogito  ergo  Sum,  as  expressed 
in  the  second  book  of  the  "  Soliloquies"  of  St.  Augustine, 
in  a  dialogue  between  his  reason  and  himself,  and  in 
which  he  thus  lays  down  the  very  foundations  of  certainty. 
It  was  in  the  deep  trouble  of  his  mind,  when,  as  philo- 
sopher, he  beheld  within  himself  the  ruin  of  every 
system  of  philosophy,  on  the  point  of  giving  up  reason 
in  despair,  he  sought  the  corner-stone  whereon  to  raise 
the  fabric  of  his  knowledge,  and  found  no  other  but  the 
Cogito  ergo  Sum.  The  advance  of  Descartes  consisted 
only  in  putting  the  same  idea  into  higher  relief,  in 
seizing  it  to  hold  it  for  ever,  and  so  never  to  be  drawn 
into  empty  speculation  again.  He  was  to  stop  his 
course  at  the  point  marked  out  by  St.  Augustine,  by 
whom,  indeed,  the  seal  was  placed  upon  the  page  which 
would  draw  succeeding  generations  to  return  upon  it  in 
meditation,  and  extract  from  it  so  many  others  equally 
immortal. 

Thus  the  soul  is  at  least  sure  of  its  own  thought, 
doubt,  or  volition,  the  witnesses  of  its  own  conscious- 
ness ;  it  is  aware  of  sensations  also,  and  demands 
whence  they  come.  The  Platonists  alleged  that  the 
senses  were  full  of  error,  and  compared  them  to  the 
oar,  which  appears  broken  when  plunged  into  water,  or 
to  a  tower  on  the  sea-coast,  which  seems  falling  when 
observed  from  the  sea  ;  but  St.  Augustine  replied,  with 
all  the  superiority  of  philosophic  truth,  "  The  senses  do 
not  deceive  us  as  it  is  ;  they  would  do  so  did  they  make 
the  oar  look  straight  or  the  tower  steadfast  ;  it  is  you 
who  deceive  yourselves,  in  asking  them  to  give  judg- 
*  Soliloquia,  lib.  ii.  cap.  i. 


CHRISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY ST.    AUGUSTINE.  287 

ments  when  they  can  only  give  impressions."  *  And, 
taking  higher  ground,  he  perceived  in  the  soul  and 
conscience  something  higher  than  the  inner  sense,  the 
most  solid  of  sensations,  namely,  ideas,  universal  and 
evident  notions,  everything,  for  instance,  which  consti- 
tuted the  elements  of  dialectical  science.  Thus  the 
same  thing  cannot  be  existent  and  non-existent.  He 
found  therein  numbers,  which  were  the  same  in  relation 
to  everything,  and  of  which  no  one  could  doubt  ;  mathe- 
matical verities,  and  also  moral  principles,  likewise  the 
same  to  all,  which  he  sometimes  called  numbers,  with 
the  Pythagoreans,  more  often  ideas,  after  Plato  ;  and  this 
was  all  discussed  by  him  at  a  time  of  absorption  in  all 
the  duties  of  a  religious  life.  Thus  the  philosopher  sub- 
sisted in  the  Christian,  and  the  excellent  tradition  of 
disdaining  nothing  of  real  utility  in  the  results  of  the 
old  reasoning  was  perpetuated. 

"  Ideas  are  certain  principal  forms,  certain  reasons  of 
things  fixed  and  invariable,  not  formed  themselves,  and 
therefore  eternal,  acting  ever  after  the  same  method,  and 
contained  in  the  Divine  Intelligence  :  and  as  they  are 
never  born,  and  can  never  perish,  it  is  upon  them  that 
everything  which  must  have  a  birth  and  a  decay  is 
formed.  The  reasoning  soul  alone  can  perceive  them, 
which  it  does  through  the  highest  part  of  itself,  namely, 
through  the  Reason,  which  is  to  it  as  an  interior  and 
discerning  eye.  And  again,  the  soul,  to  be  capable 
of  this  vision,  must  be  pure,  and  its  interior  eye 
must  be  healthy,  and  like  to  that  which  it  seeks  to 
contemplate.  Who  dares  say  that  God  created  without 
reason  ?  For  the  same  reason,  the  same  type  could 
not  equally  subserve  the  creation  of  a  man  and  a  horse. 
*  Contra  Acad.  lib.  iii.  cap.  xi. 


288  CIVILIZATION    IN   FIFTH    CENTURY. 

Therefore  every  particular  being  had  its  particular 
reason.  But  these  reasons  can  only  reside  in  the 
thought  of  the  Creator,  for  He  did  not  regard  a  model 
placed  exterior  to  Himself,  and  so  the  reason  of  things 
produced  were  of  necessity  contained  in  the  Divine 
Intelligence,"* 

Thus  the  Divine  Reason  is  present  to  the  reason  of 
man  through  these  eternal  truths,  by  this  sight  of 
numbers  and  the  essential  reasons  of  all  things;  and  so 
when  speech  external  to  ourselves  gives  names  to  these 
things  invisible  and  absolute  truths,  it  does  not  itself 
convey  to  us  the  idea  of  them,  but  only  warns  us  to 
consult  that  internal  monitor  whom  we  name  the  true, 
the  beautiful,  and  the  just,  in  that  language  of  ours 
which,  though  neither  of  Hebrew,  Greek,  Latin,  nor 
barbarian  tongue,  has  been  understood  by  all  the  world 
from  the  beginning  ;  an  eternal  language  taught  us  by  a 
Master  who  is  no  other  than  the  Word,  the  true  Christ, 
present  in  the  depths  of  human  consciousness. 

Such  was  the  psychology  of  St.  Augustine,  which  we 
now  leave  aside  to  examine  his  treatment  of  those  two 
propositions  as  to  the  spirituality  and  immortality  of  the 
soul  which  will  bridge  the  space  that  divides  us  from 
the  second  point  in  his  metaphysical  system — the  search 
for  God.  For  he  let  not  the  scruple  of  there  being  any 
inconvenience  or  culpability  in  making  self-knowledge 
the  preliminary  step  to  a  knowledge  of  God  arrest  his 
course,  but  affirmed,  on  the  contrary,  that  the  science  of 
the  human  soul  was  a  necessary  and  legitimate  intro- 
duction to  the  science  of  God.  It  was  through  his 
adoption  of  the  psychological  method  of  the  ancients  that 
he  went  far  beyond  Socrates  :  while  the  latter  had  said 
*  Liber  dc  Diversis  Qiiœstionibus,  cap.  xlvi. 


CHRISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY — ST.    AUGUSTINE.  289 

"Know  thyself,"  the  cry  of  the  former  was,  Noverim 
me,  sed  noverim  te*  But  in  what  manner  would  he 
know  God  ?  He  wished  for  an  essential  knowledge  of 
Him,  one  deeper  than  of  the  truths  of  mathematics, 
and  shrank  from  a  cold  and  freezing  scientific  ap- 
preciation of  Him,  as  he  promised  himself  therefrom 
hapj)iness  as  well  as  enlightenment.  The  way  along 
which  he  was  to  seek  for  God  was  that  passed  by 
Da\dd  as  he  uttered  the  sublime  hymn  of  praise,  Coeli 
enarrant  gloriam  Dei;  by  Xenophon  in  the  memorable 
Discussions  of  Socrates,  to  develop  the  old  but  eternal 
proof  of  God's  existence,  as  he  says  in  the  passionate 
language  of  Christian  love  : — 

"  Behold  the  heaven  and  the  earth  ;  they  exist,  they 
cry  out  that  they  have  been  made,  for  they  vary  and 
they  change.  For  that  which  exists  without  creation 
has  no  particle  which  has  not  for  ever  existed  ;  so  these 
exclaim,  '  We  stand  because  we  have  been  created  ;  we 
did  not  exist  before  our  creation,  that  we  might  create 
ourselves, — and  this  their  voice  is  their  evidence.  It  is 
Thou  who  hast  made  them,  Lord  ;  Thou  art  beautiful, 
and  so  are  they  ;  Thou  art  good,  and  they  are  good  ; 
Thou  art,  and  they  are." 

In  this  lay  his  whole  physical  proof  of  the  existence 
of  God  ;  but  it  was  upon  the  metaphysical  proof  that 
he  innovated  in  conveying  to  it  all  the  power  of  a 
genius  hitherto  unique. 

By  his  study  of  the  soul,  St.  Augustine  recognized 
immutable  principles  of  Beauty,  Goodness,  and  Truth, 
to  which  he  was  bound  to  give  the  adhesion  of  his 
mind  and  heart.  But  these  principles  did  not  merely 
reveal  themselves  to  him,  but  gave  the  impulse  towards 

*  Soliloq.  Ub.  ii.  1. 
VOL.  I.  13 


290  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

some  unknown  existences  whose  manifestations  he 
ah'eady  felt.  He  did  not  resist  it,  and  thence  came  the 
reason  for  insisting  on  that  idea  of  beauty  which  had 
fascinated  him  from  his  infancy,  and  been  the  food  of 
frequent  meditation — which  made  him  the  first  among 
Christians  to  lay  the  foundations  of  an  sesthetic  philo- 
sophy, to  write  treatises  on  Beauty,  and  utter  the  senti- 
ment, Omnis  lyidchrltudinis  forma  unitas  est.  This 
road,  then,  led  him  to  God  through  his  idea  of  beauty, 
but  it  did  not  suffice,  and  unwearied  of  the  chase  he 
sought  Him  also  by  the  path  of  goodness. 

"You  love,"  said  he,  "nothing  but  what  is  good; 
you  love  the  earth  because  it  is  so  goodly,  with  its  lofty 
mountains,  its  hills  and  dales  ;  you  love  the  human  face 
because  it  is  comely  in  the  harmony  of  form,  colour, 
and  feeling  ;  you  love  the  soul  of  your  friend,  which  is 
beautiful  by  the  charm  of  ordered  intimacy  and  faithful 
love  ;  eloquence,  because  it  teaches  sweetly  ;  poetry, 
which  is  lovely  in  the  melody  of  its  numbers  and  the 
solidity  of  its  thought  ;  in  all  that  you  love  you  find  some 
character  of  goodness — suppress  that  which  distin- 
guishes all  these  things,  and  you  will  find  the  good  itself. 
We  compare  these  various  goodnesses  ;  and  how,  if  not 
by  a  perfect  and  immutable  idea  of  good,  by  the  com- 
munication of  which  everything  is  good  ?  If  in  each 
of  these  particular  excellences  you  behold  only  the 
supreme  excellence,  you  gain  a  sight  of  God."  * 

And  so  Goodness,  by  a  similar  way,  leads  to  the 
same  goal  as  Beauty.  But  the  perception  of  the  philo- 
sopher still  distrusted  this  idea  of  what  was  beautiful 
and  good  ;  it  feared  the  empire  of  mere  fame,  and 
dreaded  yielding  to  the  raptures  of  a  spell-bound  ima- 
*  De  Trinitate,  lib.  viii.  c.  3. 


CHRISTIAN   PHILOSOPHY — ST.    AUGUSTINE.  291 

gination.  Severe  in  its  reason,  it  sought  a  conviction 
of  its  own,  and,  to  escape  all  possibility  of  delusion, 
determined  to  seek  God  through  the  idea  of  a  Truth 
which  was  pure,  absolute,  and  mathematical.  In  his  trea- 
tise, "  De  Libero  Arbitrio,"  he  therefore  recommenced 
the  demonstration  of  the  existence  of  God,  and,  that  it 
might  be  complete,  plunged  into  the  very  abysses  of 
human  nature.  Considering  man  as  possessing  three 
qualities  of  existence,  of  continuing  life,  and  of  intelli- 
gence, he  devoted  his  mind  to  the  last,  leaving  the  two 
former  out  of  the  question,  and  found  in  it  both  the 
external  senses  and  that  innermost  feeling  which  is 
their  moderator  and  judge,  and,  in  a  word,  Eeason. 
"  Eeason,"  he  said,  "  surpasses  all  the  rest  ;  if  there 
exists  anj-thing  above  it,  that  must  be  God." 

Thus,  by  a  third  effort,  and,  as  it  were,  by  a  third 
assault,  he  made  a  breach  in  the  metaphysical  barrier, 
and  entered  on  possession  of  the  Divine  Idea  ;  but 
knowing  well  the  danger  of  confiding  the  notion  of 
which  he  now  was  master  to  human  language, 
declared,  at  the  moment  in  which  his  possession 
seemed  sure,  that  perhaps  it  would  profit  more  to 
know  less — Scitur  ineHiis  nescicndo* — recognizing  the 
inexactness  of  all  human  speech  in  describing  the 
attributes  of  the  Divinity.  Right  and  left,  with  the 
dread  of  one  long  entangled  in  Manichœism,  he  beheld 
the  perils  of  Dualism  and  Pantheism.  He  avoided  the 
danger  in  declaring  that  evil  formed  no  opposing  force 
to  good  ;  that  there  were  not  two  principles,  but  that 
evil  does  not  exist  in  itself,  but  only  relatively  as  a 
deprivation  of,  an  apostasy  from,  or  an  inferiority  in 
*  De  Ordine,  lib.  ii.  c.  44. 


292  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTUEY. 

good  ;  that  beings  have  no  existence  that  is  not  given 
them  by  God  ;  and  that,  in  consequence,  there  is 
nothing  exteïnal  to  God — thus  dispeUing  at  one  blow 
the  perils  of  Dualism.  But,  then,  did  he  not  seem  to 
fall  into  Pantheism — especially  in  such  strong  expres- 
sions as  that  existences  have  no  real  existence  ?  No  ; 
there  was  no  fear  of  his  relapsing  into  his  old  error, 
and  seeing  in  all  beings  an  emanation  of  the  Divinity. 
He  drew  himself  from  the  toils  by  what  was  then  a 
novelty  in  philosophy,  and  severed  his  mind  from 
Pantheism  by  the  dogma  of  Creation.  The  ancients 
had  held  with  Plato  an  eternity  of  matter  existing  at 
the  side  of  God,  or  had  thought,  with  the  philosophers 
of  Alexandria,  that  God  had  drawn,  and  was  for  ever 
drawing,  all  existences  from  Himself  by  a  continual 
emanation.  St.  Augustine  was  the  first  to  profess  a 
Creation  from  nothing  ;  that,  external  to  God,  there 
was  nothing  from  which  the  world  could  have  been 
formed,  and  if  it  had  flowed  out  from  God,  would 
itself  have  been  God.* 

He  thus  establishes  the  doctrine  of  Creation,  and,  in 
answer  to  the  philosophical  difficulties  of  the  dogma 
that  creation  was  in  time  and  God  in  eternity — why 
and  when  had  God  created — what  had  been  His  occupa- 
tion previous  to  creation — replied,  with  calm  superiority, 
that  God  had  created  the  world  in  freedom,  but  not 
without  reason,  that  He,  as  the  good  God,  had  created 
it  for  a  good  purpose. 

"  We  must  not  inquire  when  He  created,  nor  whether, 
in  the  creative  action.  He  went  forth  from  His  immuta- 
bility, nor  as  to  what  His  previous  work  might  be.     He 

*  De  Civitate  Dei,  lib.  xii.  15.  1().  17. 


CHRISTIAN   PHILOSOPHY ST.    AUGUSTINE.  293 

willed  from  eternity,  but  produced  time  with  the  world, 
because  He  produced  the  world  in  movement,  of  which 
time  is  the  measure."* 

He  thus  abandons  his  mind  to  the  highest  and 
boldest  considerations,  with  the  utmost  judgment  and 
accuracy,  and  without  the  least  subtlety.  Having  es- 
tablished time  as  being  the  measure  of  movement,  he 
thus  concludes  : — 

"  Thus  all  my  life  is  but  succession — dissipation. 
But  Thy  hand,  my  Lord,  has  brought  me  together  in 
Christ,  the  Mediator  between  Thy  unity  and  our  multi- 
fariousness, so  that,  rallying  my  existence,  once  dissi- 
pated by  the  caprices  of  my  early  days,  I  dwell  under 
the  shadow  of  Thy  Oneness,  without  memory  of  what 
is  no  more,  with  no  anxious  aspiration  towards  that 
which  has  to  come."f 

And  so  his  reason  brings  him  back  to  love,  as  love 
had  brought  him  to  reason  ;  and  as  all  his  mystic  phi- 
losophy, under  the  guidance  of  divine  love,  tended  to  a 
rational  and  pure  notion  of  God,  so  all  his  dogmatism, 
under  the  reasoning  principle,  ended  in  love  to  the 
Almighty.  This  impossibility  of  severing  these  two 
great  forces  of  the  soul  is  the  essential  characteristic 
of  Christian  philosophy.  As  antiquity  pictures  to  us 
the  aged  Œdipus  weighed  down  under  a  sense  of  guilt 
and  by  blindness,  its  punishment,  supporting  his  pain- 
ful steps  by  the  aid  of  his  two  daughters,  Antigone  and 
Ismene,  so  the  human  mind,  like  a  blind  and  age- 
stricken  monarch  groping  from  the  beginning  of  time 
in  search  of  its  God,  has  need,  indeed,  of  its  twin- 
offspring,  love  and  reason,  to  help  it  to  its  goal,  the 

*  De  Civitate  Dei,  lib.  xii.  15,  l(i,  17. 
t  Confess,  lib.  xi.  Ui. 


294  CIVILIZATION    IN    FIFTH    CENTURY. 

knowledge  of  the  Divinity  ;  and  we  must  shrink  from 
depriving  it  of  either. 

But  the  philosophy  which  St.  Augustine  opened,  that 
new  dogmatic  system  which  compassed  a  true  notion  of 
God  as  Creator,  as  One,  and  Free,  loving  and  really  to 
be  loved,  did  not  stay  its  progress  with  its  author.  Truth, 
we  have  said,  lay  scattered  throughout  his  many  writ- 
ings, and  if  any  reproach  is  due  towards  the  great  genius 
of  Hippo,  it  lies  against  the  inevitable  diffusion  of  his 
thought  in  the  midst  of  innumerable  works,  interrupted 
as  they  were  by  the  duties  of  a  thoroughly  occupied 
life.  But  these  germs  were  not  useless  ;  they  bore 
their  fruit,  and  were  carried  over  the  stormy  centuries 
of  the  Middle  Age,  and  cast  upon  fertile  ground  in 
France,  Italy,  and  Spain,  the  native  lands  of  great 
intellects  in  the  future,  and  where  another  great  meta- 
physician and  profound  thinker  was  to  appear  in 
St.  Anselm,  whose  predestined  labour  was  to  bind 
together  in  one  group  the  proofs  of  God's  existence 
given  by  St.  Augustine,  and  present  them  by  a  more 
rigorous  method  and  in  an  exacter  form.  St.  Thomas 
Aquinas  was  also,  in  his  turn,  to  develop  the  theories 
of  St.  Anselm,  so  that  the  seventeenth  century,  with 
all  its  right  to  be  captious  in  the  matter  of  genius, 
philosophy,  and  truth,  could  find  no  greater  work  than 
that  of  bringing  to  its  light,  in  another  form,  the  doc- 
trines of  St.  Augustine,  by  the  aid  of  Descartes  and 
Leibnitz,  who  reproduced  his  metaphysics  with  certain 
corrections  and  greater  accuracy.  This  was  alike  the 
labour  of  these  great  minds,  and  of  Malebranche  in  his 
treatise,  "  Recherche  de  la  Vérité,"  who,  in  the  epigraph 
of  his  works,  gloried,  like  St.  Augustine,  in  listening 
to  that  internal  master  which  speaks  in  the  language 


CHRISTIAN    PHILOSOPHY — ST.    AUGUSTINE.  295 

of  eternity,  and  who  professed  to  behold  everything  in 
God. 

It  is  upon  this  great  and  potent  system  of  Christian 
metaphysics  that,  from  the  fifth  century  down  to  our 
own  times,  the  totality  of  modern  civilization  has 
hinged.  Its  action,  indeed,  remains  unrecognized 
amidst  the  passions  and  disorders  of  the  present  day  ; 
but  to  the  serious  and  enlightened  nations  of  the 
modern  world  metaphysics  appear  as  the  essence  and 
the  guiding  principle  of  all  things,  as  moulding  the 
public  opinion  of  Christian  races,  as  governing  every- 
thing, and  giving  the  first  reason  for  the  institutions 
amongst  which  we  live.  Dante,  on  reaching  the 
summit  of  his  Paradise,  beheld  God  as  a  mathe- 
matical point,  without  length  or  breadth,  but  as  the 
centre  of  the  revolving  heavens  : 

Da  quel  punto 
Dipende  il  cielo  eel  tutta  la  natura. 

Metaphysics,  the  idea  of  God,  form  the  point  whereupon 
the  whole  heaven  of  our  thought,  of  our  nature,  of  our 
education,  all  society,  the  entirety  of  the  Christian 
organism,  is  suspended.  So,  as  long  as  no  one  has 
shaken  that  point,  nor  laid  violent  hands  on  that  Divine 
idea,  there  need  be  no  fear  for  our  civilization. 


END    OF   VOL.    I. 


Woodfall  and  Kinder,  Printers,  Milford  Lane,  Strand,  London,  W.C. 


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